Dynamic Difficulty?

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

See, I love reading this, Trojan.

I WANT SO BADLY to turn DD back on and just stick with it.

But, pitching especially, is so tumultuous that it irritates me to no end constantly going up and down levels. And EVERY SINGLE person I've talked to that uses Classic pitching has encountered the same thing.

Granted, that's only a handful of people in the grand scheme of things (my OS Classic buddies, mainly). Especially considering how small of an install base OS members really are.

Lately I'm back to slider tweaking. LOL! Haven't had to like this in years.

So you pretty much just turn DD on (no sliders?) and leave it on? Just like that? Has pitching gotten any harder (I remember you having that problem before), or I should say, more competitive for you?

[KingV2k3]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

I've been using some minor slider adjustments (posted in my arena) in conjunction with DD / QC / Classic...

Played a season with SD and ended up with Rookie + for hitting and HOF pitching...

I experienced that HOF "bump" issue H&V has described and was tempted to bail on it and set it at AS...

Trojan Man talked me out of it (via PM) and he was right...after a couple games the pitching gameplay "settled" and I ended up sticking with DD and never regretted it...

I'm currently near the end of Season One with HOU...

I created a new "clean" profile for that franchise and am currently at AS + for both hitting and pitching...

Short Story:

DD is a game saver for me (re: "slider-itis") and I've experienced more variety of outcome and more varied in game shifts in momentum that ever...

And I've played a ton, since throughout the lifespan of this title...

#setandforget

[RogueHominid]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

Heroes, since King posted, I'll use that opportunity to plug the set of sliders he has in his arena. It's designed to be implemented with DD, to be set once and left alone. It corrects for legacy issues, but subtly, and once in place, DD kind of carries you from there. It's what I use and I've never been so happy with MLBTS as I am this year.

Is DD perfect? Definitely not. In future iterations they can usefully address the volatility of the pitching experience and probably broaden the list of criteria they use to assess and progress difficulty levels. But the pitching issue is something I can live with because the net gains are so significant with the feature on.

I'd say to give King's sliders a try and see if they give you an experience that will allow you to set it and forget it.

With all the teams I've used I've seen great variety in both pitching and hitting performances, including long streaks of productivity and futility on the mound and at the plate.

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

Heroes, since King posted, I'll use that opportunity to plug the set of sliders he has in his arena. It's designed to be implemented with DD, to be set once and left alone. It corrects for legacy issues, but subtly, and once in place, DD kind of carries you from there. It's what I use and I've never been so happy with MLBTS as I am this year.

Is DD perfect? Definitely not. In future iterations they can usefully address the volatility of the pitching experience and probably broaden the list of criteria they use to assess and progress difficulty levels. But the pitching issue is something I can live with because the net gains are so significant with the feature on.

I'd say to give King's sliders a try and see if they give you an experience that will allow you to set it and forget it.

With all the teams I've used I've seen great variety in both pitching and hitting performances, including long streaks of productivity and futility on the mound and at the plate.

So the sliders are meant to be used in conjunction with QC's. Meaning you only enter them omce you DD finds your level and then you turn DD off? Or you leave it on and they're designed to keep you on the same level?

I'm actually pretty happy with where my AS tweaks are heading but I will be sure to write them down just incase or if I start another Franchise!

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it man.

[KingV2k3]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

So the sliders are meant to be used in conjunction with QC's. Meaning you only enter them omce you DD finds your level and then you turn DD off? Or you leave it on and they're designed to keep you on the same level?

I'm actually pretty happy with where my AS tweaks are heading but I will be sure to write them down just incase or if I start another Franchise!

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it man.

I put the sliders in / set both hitting and pitching to DD and let it ride...

I didn't turn it off at any point...and won't!

[COMMISSIONERHBK9]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

Have you tried playing without guess pitch for any length of time? Do you strike out a lot? I don't think dynamic difficulty will hurt you in anyway in franchise.

i actually dont strike out alot with guessing location i actually drawing walks now

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

Heroes, since King posted, I'll use that opportunity to plug the set of sliders he has in his arena. It's designed to be implemented with DD, to be set once and left alone. It corrects for legacy issues, but subtly, and once in place, DD kind of carries you from there. It's what I use and I've never been so happy with MLBTS as I am this year.

Is DD perfect? Definitely not. In future iterations they can usefully address the volatility of the pitching experience and probably broaden the list of criteria they use to assess and progress difficulty levels. But the pitching issue is something I can live with because the net gains are so significant with the feature on.

I'd say to give King's sliders a try and see if they give you an experience that will allow you to set it and forget it.

With all the teams I've used I've seen great variety in both pitching and hitting performances, including long streaks of productivity and futility on the mound and at the plate.

I put the sliders in / set both hitting and pitching to DD and let it ride...

I didn't turn it off at any point...and won't!

Do either of you have any long term stats you feel comfortable sharing? I'm specifically looking at the pitching side here but anything either of you wants to share would be good.

Just basic stuff like ERA, hits allowed, BB's, K's, etc. If not that's cool but I figured I'd ask.

[KingV2k3]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

Do either of you have any long term stats you feel comfortable sharing? I'm specifically looking at the pitching side here but anything either of you wants to share would be good.

Just basic stuff like ERA, hits allowed, BB's, K's, etc. If not that's cool but I figured I'd ask.

I could prob get you some team stats from the SD and HOU franchises over the next couple days or so...

In both instances, the team hitting was about 10th overall, whereas SD was a top 5 pitching team and HOU came in around 10th...

I play one starters games and sim the rest, and in both instances, the played game stats were consistent with the simmed ones...

My teams seem to "overachieve" slightly, esp. in the sims...

[RogueHominid]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

I could prob get you some team stats from the SD and HOU franchises over the next couple days or so...

In both instances, the team hitting was about 10th overall, whereas SD was a top 5 pitching team and HOU came in around 10th...

I play one starters games and sim the rest, and in both instances, the played game stats were consistent with the simmed ones...

My teams seem to "overachieve" slightly, esp. in the sims...

And for comparison's sake, my HOU franchise, which is at the trade deadline, has my team ERA at 4.5 or so, compared to my 3.25 ERA in the OAK franchise. I play 1 starter's starts like King does (his idea, great idea!), for context.

[KingV2k3]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

And for comparison's sake, my HOU franchise, which is at the trade deadline, has my team ERA at 4.5 or so, compared to my 3.25 ERA in the OAK franchise. I play 1 starter's starts like King does (his idea, great idea!), for context.

Yeah, that's one of the things that needs to be taken into account here...

TM and I are playing with the same sliders / settings and "house rules", but are having different stat lines / results...

User input in both played and simmed games in conjunction with a wide degree of variance from the sim engine make for an "unpredictable" end result in total...

The things we both seem to see / experience are more related to the overall quality of gameplay than similar stats...

That being said, I'll see what numbers I can provide...

[KingV2k3]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

Do either of you have any long term stats you feel comfortable sharing? I'm specifically looking at the pitching side here but anything either of you wants to share would be good.

Just basic stuff like ERA, hits allowed, BB's, K's, etc. If not that's cool but I figured I'd ask.

Okay, I have a problem with my SD season stats...

It appears as though when you advance the franchise into the playoffs, there's no way to dial up the regular season individual or team stats outside of the Player Card...

So:

I "played" Erlin's starts and ended up with a 10-10 Won-Loss 114 K 3.47 ERA

HOU has 147 (74-73, WL) games total (120 simmed / 27 played)

ERA 3.77
Hits 1212
Runs 597
HR 142
BB 462
K 901
WHIP 1.27

Played as Kuechel

ERA 3.35
Hits 124
Runs 61
HR 16
BB 48
K 105
WHIP 1.08

The Kuechel stats are a "tale of two levels" in that he was very good until I hit AS +

After that point, he's been knocked out in the 5th inning or so and has taken 4 straight losses...has had the "cold" icon for the past two...

IRL his ERA is 3.06 and WHIP is 1.17 at the AS break, so not too far off...

The IRL team stats are slightly off for WHIP, as the team currently has a 1.37, as opposed to my 1.27...

TM's Team ERA is closer to IRL, which is 4.50...

Mine is 3.77, because the simmed games featured unusually good production from Feldman / Williams / Cosart...

[dodgerblue]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

So far my Dodger franchise (QC) I'm 19-14 in first by 2 games.

Started up with pitching and hitting using DD. Didn't take long to work up to high veteran and then to Allstar. It fluctuates based on my performance each inning, which really surprised me. If I have a bad inning, it might drop to Allstar --, then if I do well (scoring runs, or setting the side down in order) it will bump back up to Allstar - or just straight Allstar or even Allstar ++. I'm not sure if the longer you play, the less impact a good or bad inning will have.

My only concern is, when i'm pitching well, it gets harder and harder till i start giving up hits and runs during the game. Same with hitting, so if I get shutdown early, in an inning or two I might light up the pitcher because the game gets easier.

One thing I can say for sure, the game feels and plays much differently when I played default allstar or veteran with sliders. It's much more fun, although not as many pitching duels because of the above AI adjustments.

The best part is, for the first time I'm not continuously tweaking the sliders. I just play it the way it is.

[tmoney51691]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

I started out with dynamic difficulty on both hitting and pitching, but I eventually got to the point where I was on All-Star+ and hemorrhaging runs. So I ended up changing pitching to All-Star and left hitting on dynamic.

[Greencollarbaseball]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

My stats so far using DD for pitching, Vet for hitting, auto running, and auto fielding. Sliders have; hum/cpu consistency and strike freq at 3, cpu solid hits at 3, and fielder run speed at 2. Everything else is at default. This is with classic pitching and timing hitting.

I've also played every game.

Games: 101
Record: 58-43 2nd place

OFFENSE:
AVG: .243
HITS: 840
RUNS: 389
2B: 176
3B: 23
HR: 125
RBI: 380
BB: 179
SO: 787
SLG: .416
OPB: .282
OPS: .698

PITCHING:
ERA: 3.10
GS: 101
QS: 71
CG: 3
SHO: 8
SV: 22
IP: 907.2
H: 703
R: 336
ER: 313
HR: 103
BB: 349
SO: 869
WHIP: 1.16

LEAGUE RANKS
Offense:
BA: 25th
HR: 4th
RBI: 22nd
BB: 30th
SO: 25th

Pitching:
ERA: 1st
Runs: 1st
HR: 17th
BB: 30th
SO: 1st

So this is just snap shot of what my team is doing, overall I'm happy with how it plays. Obviously my walks and BA are low because I don't take enough pitches and swing at bad ones to often, thats on me and not the game.
QC has definitely attributed to my increased walk numbers for pitching.

[The Chef]

Re: Dynamic Difficulty?

So far my Dodger franchise (QC) I'm 19-14 in first by 2 games.

Started up with pitching and hitting using DD. Didn't take long to work up to high veteran and then to Allstar. It fluctuates based on my performance each inning, which really surprised me. If I have a bad inning, it might drop to Allstar --, then if I do well (scoring runs, or setting the side down in order) it will bump back up to Allstar - or just straight Allstar or even Allstar ++. I'm not sure if the longer you play, the less impact a good or bad inning will have.

My only concern is, when i'm pitching well, it gets harder and harder till i start giving up hits and runs during the game. Same with hitting, so if I get shutdown early, in an inning or two I might light up the pitcher because the game gets easier.

One thing I can say for sure, the game feels and plays much differently when I played default allstar or veteran with sliders. It's much more fun, although not as many pitching duels because of the above AI adjustments.

The best part is, for the first time I'm not continuously tweaking the sliders. I just play it the way it is.

Just so you know the All-Star++ thing is just straight All-Star and the "++" is your progress towards actual All-Star+. When it shows a "-" that's your progress backwards towards Veteran+. Your difficulty will only change once per game and only when there is a difference of 3 runs or more one way or the other.