A different approach to game design

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  • BillPeener
    Rookie
    • Mar 2017
    • 136

    #1

    A different approach to game design

    Ideally, a good baseball video game has clearly understood game mechanics with developers providing as much detail as possible - formulas, code, philosophy. Player ability, however, would be more ambiguous and mysterious. Is player A faster than player B? Let's find out. Have a time trial feature that shows and saves players' 40 times. Then, the speed rating you see in the game would match up to how the player ran that day. Maybe he was having an off day - maybe he's hurt. Who knows, but the number would be variable and would change only when scouts / coaches / players provide us updates, manually or automatically requested. Imagine right before your game, your star comes to you and says, "hey man, my knee is barking today, can I get the day off?" I know the game warns you when players are tired and suggests substitutions, but how are these determined? How accurate are these suggestions?

    That's just one example, but there's countless others. Instead of seeing exactly how confident a pitcher is in his fastball, maybe we could actually watch the pitcher before the game, with the pitching coach giving us hints about his status. "Great control today, I like what I see." Or, "he's taking something off his fastball, maybe he's hurt." Then, you could talk to your trainer, who could perform a physical on the pitcher or run other tests to make sure he's OK. Suppose the final conclusion is that your starter has a sore shoulder, but it's not too bad. Expect less control, velocity, and pitches today." We could even add a pitching limit that would alert us when the pitcher is approaching his limit.

    This approach takes the emphasis off of numbers and puts it onto our eyes and our coaches' broad, vague notes. And of course, the accuracy of those notes is contingent on your coaches' / scouts' ratings. Of course, the scouts and coaches should have hard ratings. I mean, we can't have scouts scouting scouts! But their ratings could go up and down based on various factors.

    This is more like real baseball. From my experience, the only video game that came close to what I'm talking about is All-Star 2003, which gave players A-F ratings as opposed to 1-100 numbers. It seems more cryptic yet more realistic, too.

    -------------

    That's all fantasy, of course. The reality is that we spend more time trying to unravel the mysteries behind game mechanics and far less time evaluating players. I don't know about you, but that's backwards and far from ideal. In a moment's time, a developer could send us the formula for how injuries and in-game ratings work. They could tell us, "shoulder injuries cause pitcher velocity to drop by x points". That way, we could understand better how the game actually functions. Instead, you and I have to spend hours, days, weeks, or longer testing just to figure out how injuries relate to on-field performance. And that's just one example.

    In the future, it'd be nice to see a transition away from gamers having to figure out the mysteries behind game mechanics to a more realistic, player-focused mystery.
    Last edited by BillPeener; 04-11-2017, 03:38 PM.
  • Caulfield
    Hall Of Fame
    • Apr 2011
    • 10986

    #2
    Re: A different approach to game design

    I dont look at ratings once i go into season mode (or franchise)
    I really feel like this is what spring training is for in the Show.
    It wont take may AB's in ST for me to know that Yoan Moncada should start at 2nd over Carlos Sanchez in my CWS season. Maybe going with Tyler Saladino over Tim Anderson isnt the ''right'' call but making these choices is part of the fun of video game baseball. Esp. when choices of saladino over Anderson pan out.
    OSFM23 - Building Better Baseball - OSFM23

    A Work in Progress

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    • BillPeener
      Rookie
      • Mar 2017
      • 136

      #3
      Re: A different approach to game design

      Originally posted by Caulfield
      I dont look at ratings once i go into season mode (or franchise)
      I really feel like this is what spring training is for in the Show.
      It wont take may AB's in ST for me to know that Yoan Moncada should start at 2nd over Carlos Sanchez in my CWS season. Maybe going with Tyler Saladino over Tim Anderson isnt the ''right'' call but making these choices is part of the fun of video game baseball. Esp. when choices of saladino over Anderson pan out.
      I hacked MVP 2005 on the Xbox so that all ratings were removed from the screen. It forced me to focus on on-field performance and made the game much more interesting. However, it felt unrealistic because I didn't have any coaches / scouts helping me.

      I agree about Spring Training, but how do you handle not looking at ratings mid-season when trading for or signing other players? How do you test their on-field performance? I guess you could go to their games and lock onto those players like a real scout.

      How do you scout other teams before playing them? Say the opponent gets a hit. How do you know if the guy on first is really fast or really slow? Do you watch all of these players run the bases first and then keep notes on each player?
      Last edited by BillPeener; 04-11-2017, 04:06 PM.

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      • nomo17k
        Permanently Banned
        • Feb 2011
        • 5735

        #4
        Re: A different approach to game design

        I agree a lot of what OP discusses gets a sports game closer to more authentic quasi-sports experiences, but I don't see it happening given people's fixation over things like OVR ratings and endless discussing over player attributes "off" from their perception, etc. The popularity of card flipping modes also doesn't provide any motivation for the developers to prioritize authenticity over novelty and higher activity level easily measured by usage metrics and all.

        I thought The Show has had a chance to be *the* game when I discovered the game a few years ago, but I'm not sure that's the direction where the developers want to take the game now.
        The Show CPU vs. CPU game stats: 2018,17,16,15,14,13,12,11

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        • BillPeener
          Rookie
          • Mar 2017
          • 136

          #5
          Re: A different approach to game design

          Originally posted by nomo17k
          I agree a lot of what OP discusses gets a sports game closer to more authentic quasi-sports experiences, but I don't see it happening given people's fixation over things like OVR ratings and endless discussing over player attributes "off" from their perception, etc. The popularity of card flipping modes also doesn't provide any motivation for the developers to prioritize authenticity over novelty and higher activity level easily measured by usage metrics and all.

          I thought The Show has had a chance to be *the* game when I discovered the game a few years ago, but I'm not sure that's the direction where the developers want to take the game now.
          I see what you're saying. I would never expect the devs to get player attributes right - that takes a lot of serious, in-depth scouting that they're not qualified to do. I'm ok with them getting player speeds wrong, for example.

          What I wish for is revealed game mechanics (remember when game manuals were an entire book?) and the option to edit more aspects of the player and mechanics. For example, maybe the devs got Kris Byrant's speed wrong. But what happens if we bump it up by 10 points? To what degree does a 1 point speed increase a player's ability to cover ground? Is a 1 point increase a 1m/s increase? 1 foot per second? And does it influence other factors such as speed ability, pitcher confidence (I figure pitchers feel more confident with a 50 speed guy than a 99 on 1st). Does that bump in speed make Bryant a better runner in the field, too? Or does it just make it stronger on the bases? How do injuries influence speed?

          All of this is a complete mystery to you and me.

          Working example: you're pitching, and you throw at the batter's head. In real life, you'd expect a high and inside curveball to fool them on the next pitch, seeing as you just brushed them off the plate. You come to find out that the game actually has no mechanic for this. The batter doesn't adjust his approach or have his attributes modified because you threw at his head. The curve you throw on the next pitch is completely separate to the previous pitch, all game factors considered.

          I don't know about you, but that would frustrate me. I would hate to waste my time on strategies that the game isn't even taking into account. But the only ways for me to prove that is

          1. Test the game long enough to be mostly certain how high heat influences the batter's approach (if at all)
          2. Steal the game code
          3. Ask the developers to tell us

          We already spend tons of time on #1, and I'm not interested in getting a criminal record for trying #2. I guess all we can do is push #3.
          Last edited by BillPeener; 04-11-2017, 04:42 PM.

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          • WhiteBunny
            Rookie
            • Oct 2014
            • 332

            #6
            Re: A different approach to game design

            Really nice post. But i think The Show is heading for another route. Cards, faster games, a more arcade feeling and all in all a videogame more fun to play ( ? ) and less realistic. Your arguments are good and really solid, but don't expect to see big improvements on the simulation side. It's happening in every sport game all around the world. FUT/DD players don't care about sport or a realistic simulation, all they want is open packs and get rewards as fast as possible. Baseball is just a filter to get what they want. This is the future of sport games and it's the reason why you see a ton of upgrades in DD while a mode like Franchise basically adds many ways to actually don't play the game.

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            • BillPeener
              Rookie
              • Mar 2017
              • 136

              #7
              Re: A different approach to game design

              Originally posted by WhiteBunny
              Really nice post. But i think The Show is heading for another route. Cards, faster games, a more arcade feeling and all in all a videogame more fun to play ( ? ) and less realistic. Your arguments are good and really solid, but don't expect to see big improvements on the simulation side. It's happening in every sport game all around the world. FUT/DD players don't care about sport or a realistic simulation, all they want is open packs and get rewards as fast as possible. Baseball is just a filter to get what they want. This is the future of sport games and it's the reason why you see a ton of upgrades in DD while a mode like Franchise basically adds many ways to actually don't play the game.
              Thanks, and I see what you're saying. But with how popular OOTP is, I think there's enough customers to convince SCEA to listen. They clearly care about getting certain aspects of the game as realistic as possible.

              And I don't think it has to be a dichotomy between sim and arcade. The arcade guys might just want to crank out homers and throw no hitters, and maybe they care more about their rankings and little cards or whatever. But I gotta think they also want more realistic gameplay, and it would be far more realistic to put the emphasis more on evaluating players than uncovering hidden secrets of the dev code. Because at the end of the day, if you know how the game actually works (leg injuries reduce speed by 10%, bullpen guys see a morale drop if you leave them warming up all game or not using them enough), you have a better grasp on the game and how to exploit it. As an arcade guy, if I know my closer has lower ratings if I put him in the 8th than the 9th, then I'm going to think differently than if I find out it makes absolutely zero difference.

              From that angle, my OP ideally appeals to both sim and arcade fans. Of course, I agree that many might not care, and I can't blame the devs to adjusting their priorities according to profits.
              Last edited by BillPeener; 04-11-2017, 04:56 PM.

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              • Caulfield
                Hall Of Fame
                • Apr 2011
                • 10986

                #8
                Re: A different approach to game design

                Originally posted by BillPeener

                I agree about Spring Training, but how do you handle not looking at ratings mid-season when trading for or signing other players? How do you test their on-field performance? I guess you could go to their games and lock onto those players like a real scout.

                How do you scout other teams before playing them? Say the opponent gets a hit. How do you know if the guy on first is really fast or really slow? Do you watch all of these players run the bases first and then keep notes on each player?
                The few trades I make I pretty much just go by stats. sometimes it turns out good and sometimes I get burned. but even Theo Epstein had his Carl Crawford.

                the second part, I just look at stolen bases, if a particular player doesnt have many, but he winds upbeing faster than stolen bases would suggest, then his aggression must be low. low enough for me not to consider him a threat to steal. but even if say a centerfielder doesnt have a lot of steals, I'm going to treat him different on the basepath as opposed to a catcher with low/no steals.
                none of these methods are fool-proof, which is what I want. I dont want to be invincible.
                I want to have flaws, be fortunate to win 90 games and maybe (or maybe not) qualify for the post-season.

                I also base a lot of what I do on my perception of my players IRL counterparts.
                I find it interesting when they pleasantly surprise me to be better in the Show than IRL or when I aquire my own Carl Crawfords and realise I've been duped, I can let the expletives fly with the best of them.
                OSFM23 - Building Better Baseball - OSFM23

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