MLB The Show 17 - Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

[Russell_SCEA]

So yesterday we had a little game design round-table with everyone on how to handle playing out of position better. (First and foremost we weren't going to talk about this in a vlog or the streams. So that's why we are talking about this now.) We hope you guys enjoy this little behind the scenes look.

A little back story on how we got here, I sent an email to one of the programmers inquiring what could be done to A. make utility players more valuable, B. discourage people from playing guys out of position (especially in DD) to get more bats in the lineup, and C. make secondary positions matter more.

A few of us (I'm lying it was just me) wanted to go full napalm and just completely nerf anyone playing out of position which we currently do in some instances. However SS and 2nd baseman shouldn't get nerfed too bad playing other IF positions. But we all know that strong defensive SS for example could probably play a decent 2nd base if he had to, right?

That's the cliff notes version of how the round-table came to be. (fyi this all happened over the course of the last 3 work days Saturday, Sunday and Monday) After we all talked and hashed it out here's the email the lead programmer sent everyone after he made the changes based on the discussion. (There are no edits to the email just raw information enjoy.)

"I (Jeff lead programmer) just checked in the following changes:

• Gill (Lead Gameplay Producer you've seen Gill on all the Gameplay streams) and I made few changes to the out-of-position table to penalize guys a little more in certain combinations
• When calculating a fielder’s attribute when he’s out of position, it will now look at his secondary positions as well as his primary position and will calculate his attribute for each position he can play using the out-of-position chart. His attribute will be the highest of these values.
• Any fielder playing middle infielder that does not have at least one of the middle infielder positions as a primary or secondary position will now use the out-of-position double play turns, regardless of his fielding attribute after the out-of-position adjustment.
• Any left handed fielder playing C, 2B, 3B or SS will only receive 10% of their fielding attribute (which will force missed branches.)

Here are a few examples that is impacted by a couple of these changes:

Player A. on Houston is a 3B with LF and SS as secondary positions. His fielding ability is 83. I moved him to 2nd base. Using the old logic, he would have lost 40% of his attribute, leaving him as about a 49.

With the new logic, since player A. has SS as a secondary position, it uses the SS  2B penalty instead of the 3B  2B penalty, which is only 10%. We also take the extra 5% off because we’re basing this off of a secondary position, but even with a 15% penalty, he’s now only brought down to a 70 instead of 49. Also, since he has SS as a secondary position, he’s still allowed to use the normal double play turns.

Another example: player B. is a 3B with no secondary positions and a fielding ability of 84. I move him to 2nd base. A 3B playing 2B is penalized 40%, so that would leave him with an attribute of about 50. This is above the “low ability” cutoff of 30, so using the old logic, he would have been able to do the athletic double play turns. With the new logic, since he’s not able to play either of the middle infield positions, he’ll only use the out-of-position double play turns. Any of his other throws will still branch, but his DP turns will be significantly slower than a normal 2B.

Also, when Gill and I adjusted the chart, we made it so that no outfielder moved into the infield would end up with fielding ability above 30. This will ensure that outfielders playing in the infield are always treated as “low ability”. Unless, of course, they have a secondary infield position that causes them to get less of a penalty.

Disclaimer we are still testing and there is a possibility we might change things so nothing is concrete. (We aren't taking suggestions)However we hope you all enjoy this incoherent behind the scenes look at The Show take care.

[Sip_16]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

[p00p1]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

I think the biggest help would be to dynamically show the player's attributes on the substitution/lineup screen, based on their current defensive position. So if I think it might be a good idea for Buster Posey to play OF, show me on the substitution screen the affect it will have to his defensive ratings. Either with new numbers or if you are keeping the graphical displays, show how much of a hit he would be taking.

Otherwise, any changes to attributes are kind of lost and the only real reminder are the oop animations.

[pjs24]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Here is the deal yesterday we had a little game design round-table with everyone on how to handle playing out of position better. (First and foremost we weren't going to talk about this in a vlog or the streams. So that's why we are talking about this now.) We hope you guys enjoy this little behind the scenes look.

A little back story I sent an email to one of the programmers inquiring what could be done to A. make utility players more valuable, B. discourage people from playing guys out of position (especially in DD) to get more bats in the lineup, and C. make secondary positions matter more.

A few of us (I'm lying it was just me) wanted to go full napalm and just completely nerf anyone playing out of position which we currently do in some instances. However SS and 2nd baseman shouldn't get nerfed too bad playing other IF positions. But we all know that strong defensive SS for example could probably play a decent 2nd base if he had to, right?

So that's the cliff notes version of how the round-table came to be. After we all talked and hashed it out here's the email the lead programmer sent everyone after he made the changes based on the discussion.

"I (Jeff lead programmer) just checked in the following changes:

• Gill (Lead Gameplay Producer you've seen Gill on all the Gameplay streams) and I made few changes to the out-of-position table to penalize guys a little more in certain combinations
• When calculating a fielder’s attribute when he’s out of position, it will now look at his secondary positions as well as his primary position and will calculate his attribute for each position he can play using the out-of-position chart. His attribute will be the highest of these values.
• Any fielder playing middle infielder that does not have at least one of the middle infielder positions as a primary or secondary position will now use the out-of-position double play turns, regardless of his fielding attribute after the out-of-position adjustment.
• Any left handed fielder playing C, 2B, 3B or SS will only receive 10% of their fielding attribute (which will force missed branches.)

Here are a few examples that is impacted by a couple of these changes:

Player A. on Houston is a 3B with LF and SS as secondary positions. His fielding ability is 83. I moved him to 2nd base. Using the old logic, he would have lost 40% of his attribute, leaving him as about a 49.

With the new logic, since player A. has SS as a secondary position, it uses the SS  2B penalty instead of the 3B  2B penalty, which is only 10%. We also take the extra 5% off because we’re basing this off of a secondary position, but even with a 15% penalty, he’s now only brought down to a 70 instead of 49. Also, since he has SS as a secondary position, he’s still allowed to use the normal double play turns.

Another example: player B. is a 3B with no secondary positions and a fielding ability of 84. I move him to 2nd base. A 3B playing 2B is penalized 40%, so that would leave him with an attribute of about 50. This is above the “low ability” cutoff of 30, so using the old logic, he would have been able to do the athletic double play turns. With the new logic, since he’s not able to play either of the middle infield positions, he’ll only use the out-of-position double play turns. Any of his other throws will still branch, but his DP turns will be significantly slower than a normal 2B.

Also, when Gill and I adjusted the chart, we made it so that no outfielder moved into the infield would end up with fielding ability above 30. This will ensure that outfielders playing in the infield are always treated as “low ability”. Unless, of course, they have a secondary infield position that causes them to get less of a penalty.

Disclaimer we are still testing and there is a possibility we might change things so nothing is concrete. However we hope you all enjoy this behind the scenes look at The Show take care.

Great stuff, Ramone. I like this. I think the defensive spectrum is a good guide here and high quality MI/3B should probably also be able to hack it in a corner OF position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_spectrum

[pjs24]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

I think the biggest help would be to dynamically show the player's attributes on the substitution/lineup screen, based on their current defensive position. So if I think it might be a good idea for Buster Posey to play OF, show me on the substitution screen the affect it will have to his defensive ratings. Either with new numbers or if you are keeping the graphical displays, show how much of a hit he would be taking.

Love this idea. There's always speculation on how much it changes, but it we could just see it, that'd be great.

[mrCPUgeek]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Thank you Ramone for sharing that behind the scenes info with us. You guys as SDS truly are amazing how you interact with the community!

Also, it is great to see how important it is to y'all that aspects of the game are as authentic as possible.

[redsox4evur]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Nice to see Ramone is an Alex Bregman fan.

[ShowTyme15]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

I like the new idea.

I personally have always thought you guys should have sliders for each secondary positions in the editor for players.

EXAMPLE: Lets say a player plays 1B as primary, but LF/RF are secondary positions it will look like this in the editor with sliders

C - 0
1B - 99
2B - 0
3B - 0
SS - 0
LF - 77
CF - 5
RF - 80

A utility guy that plays all 4 infield spots and can play CF

C - 0
1B - 55
2B - 75
3B -70
SS -82
LF - 15
CF - 75
RF - 10

These are just a few examples of what I'm trying to explain. Anything over 50% should show up as secondary positions on the player card. This actually helps when guys switch positions or try out new positions in real life. It allows us to adjust without having to change primary and secondary positions to make it work.

A guy like Howie Kendrick has become somewhat of a utility guy.

He can play 1B/2B/3B/LF

1B - 60
2B - 90
3B - 77
SS - 10
LF - 70
CF - 0
RF - 10

[BigOscar]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Glad your thinking about this sort of thing. Any chance of adding a feature in Franchise to teach players new secondary positions or change a secondary to be their primary? As this seems like it would fit in perfectly with it (I know you can just use edit mode, but that always feels a bit like cheating)

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

A couple of things after reading the above post...

First off, thanks for posting that info!

1. I agree with p00p above that showing us the calculated fielding ratings sorted by position on the player's card would be a big deal for us. With seeing the numbers (like those in lead programmer Jeff's message), we could really mull over the pros and cons of moving guys around or not. Have the game calculate and display these 'hidden' fielding ratings so we don't have to slog through that math for every player and positional combo.

2. We still need more flexibility when creating players and adjusting their secondary positions. There are some exotic combinations that we just can't enter into the game the way it's currently set up. As you guys tinker with positions, my suggestion would be to allow us to give a player any number/combination of secondary positions, not just 2B/SS, 1B/3B etc. More a la carte. There are many guys who have value simply because they can Zobrist their way around the diamond in a way that the game doesn't currently allow us to fully replicate.

[Russell_SCEA]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

I think the biggest help would be to dynamically show the player's attributes on the substitution/lineup screen, based on their current defensive position. So if I think it might be a good idea for Buster Posey to play OF, show me on the substitution screen the affect it will have to his defensive ratings. Either with new numbers or if you are keeping the graphical displays, show how much of a hit he would be taking.

Otherwise, any changes to attributes are kind of lost and the only real reminder are the oop animations.

We want that too but there just isn't enough time to add that new logic and functionality into all of those screens.

[Yari]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Russel, I have a couple quick questions. Will the left handed penalties apply at all to lefty infielders in RTTS? Additionally, if I made a DD player a lefty shortstop by assigning him to that role, would he incur any penalty?

I decided to make a left-handed shortstop for fun in RTTS just to see how it would play so I'm curious how he would be affected under the new system and if I receive any penalty under the old. Granted, he's technically playing in his position but with the "wrong" handedness so perhaps there's no penalty at all under the old system but for the lefty animations.

[p00p1]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

We want that too but there just isn't enough time to add that new logic and functionality into all of those screens.

Too bad, hope to see it some day. Would also be helpful for players who take a hit based on fatigue.

[Russell_SCEA]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Too bad, hope to see it some day. Would also be helpful for players who take a hit based on fatigue.

Players already take attribute hits when they are playing fatigued.

[Russell_SCEA]

Re: Behind the Scenes "Playing Out of Position" Changes

Russel, I have a couple quick questions. Will the left handed penalties apply at all to lefty infielders in RTTS? Additionally, if I made a DD player a lefty shortstop by assigning him to that role, would he incur any penalty?

I decided to make a left-handed shortstop for fun in RTTS just to see how it would play so I'm curious how he would be affected under the new system and if I receive any penalty under the old. Granted, he's technically playing in his position but with the "wrong" handedness so perhaps there's no penalty at all under the old system but for the lefty animations.

I'm not sure ask on the stream next week.