The Comeback AI thread

[mcseven]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Hey Swaldo I assume you play with the Angels and I know half of the pitchers are hurt which may play a big part of it. But I pitched a game with Saunders went 8 and 1/3 innings HOF level and left with a 3 run lead. I put Fuentes in there and the computer gets exactly the 4 runs it needs to take the lead. Then all of a sudden they hit into a double play. Now I know Fuentes is nowhere near K Rod level but come on.

[bigjake62505]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

This question is kind of broad. Would the "comeback" or "BS" issue cause me to hit into a double play every time I have a guy at 1st and I do not attemp to steal with them? In my pirates dynasty every time I do not start the runner i hit into a DP. I noticed this about ten games ago so I started keeping track of it. I will not swing at the pitch unless it is high. I have even striked out because I will not swing unless the pitch is at least waist high. So far out of 14 attempts with a guy on first and the pitch being in the strike zone waist high or higher 14 have been hit on the ground right too a fielder for a DP. 10 out of those 14 times I was in the wheel house with normal to perfect timing. I replay every time this happens and the swing looks good, the ball placement is good off the bat then it looks intentional because the ball takes an exagerated path to the ground for the DP.

[davewins]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Anybody else notice that the CPU gets A LOT of 2-out rallies or hits?

It seems that even when I get two quick outs, the 3rd batter or 3rd out would more often than not become a total chore to get out. You could be Johan Santana going up against an Erick Aybar and all of a sudden it feels like you're a rookie pitcher going up against Ted Williams. He starts fouling off everything, taking pitches with two strikes that are ridiculously close to a strike but the batter magically knows it's going to be a ball...before finally just smack a laser shot for a single. It happens so frequent to me that I pretty much expect to give up 3 or 4 straight hits once that first 2 out batter goes into God mode. Usually leads to my other theory, the 3-spot. Heh.

Again, I'm not completely onboard with the comeback theory, but I do see frustrating things that suddenly happen in the game that feel completely out of your control.

I also started monitoring the Confidence of the pitchers, and it's pretty ridiculous how much the CPU benefits from it, and you get completely crippled by it. Again, you could be Johan Santana and retire the side for 3 innings before having your confidence meter max out, while the CPU could be a no-name #5 guy, but if he gets you 1-2-3 in the 1st inning, it's pretty much game over because his confidence meter maxes out. At that point, they narrow in the strike zone (and literally throw a Ball at a 10-20% clip), and they can paint the corners, become the 2nd coming of Greg Maddux while you can't even smack pitches down the middle (they become ground outs or pop ups).

Similarly, you could be cruising and if you give up 2 hits or a run, the scripted part of the game kicks in and your pitcher (even if it's Santana) just falls apart. Everything starts getting tractor beamed into the middle of the plate, and every pitch starts getting smacked.

So frustrating.

I notice the same thing (referring to bolded). The CPU's confidence can easily stay up while the user's goes down quicker.

Also as you mention about balls down the middle being hit for outs....What determines a hard hit ball if sometimes you hit location with L-stick perfect and timing is perfect according to the swing analysis. Why should that be a double play ground out?? Shouldn't the physics from the hitting engine take over here?? No, instead it seems as if the CPU's pitcher confidence or individual pitch confidence overrules how you actually timed the pitch and placed the stick. I have definetley noticed this.

[davewins]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Swaldo for your confidence test on this....

Just a suggestion....Maybe you can test x amount of games with confidence turned off. This way all the individual pitches will have a static attribute for the entire game no matter what and it could be easier to track stats. This way you can only look at overall pitcher confidence.

Which brings me to my next point....

Why SCEA (I know you probably aren't reading LOL) but WHY do we not have an option to turn off pitcher confidence all together?? I think that would add so much more to the gameplay.

Let the confidence affect personal gameplay by the USER himself instead of an attribute. Maybe the USER when playing and pitching poorly will lose it on the mound. Or maybe just make the pitching meter faster or something so it's harder. Or simply make it so the release point is harder to hit. But don't make it randomly affect the outcome of the pitch even if the USER does the right things with the controller. PLEASE lol.

[Phoenixmgs]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

I notice the same thing (referring to bolded). The CPU's confidence can easily stay up while the user's goes down quicker.

Yeah, and the CPU will do a mound visit after a few men get on where the pitcher's confidence is somewhere like 50% - 66% and the confidence gets bumped back up to 75% or higher. It's ridiculous.

[swaldo]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Hey Swaldo I assume you play with the Angels and I know half of the pitchers are hurt which may play a big part of it. But I pitched a game with Saunders went 8 and 1/3 innings HOF level and left with a 3 run lead. I put Fuentes in there and the computer gets exactly the 4 runs it needs to take the lead. Then all of a sudden they hit into a double play. Now I know Fuentes is nowhere near K Rod level but come on.

I've seen that quite a bit. The CPU comes back and ties it or takes the lead by one, then their bats get ice cold. Even if you have bases loaded with nobody out they'll pop it up and you get out without further damage. Doesn't happen all the time but enough to scratch my head.

This question is kind of broad. Would the "comeback" or "BS" issue cause me to hit into a double play every time I have a guy at 1st and I do not attempt to steal with them?

I can’t answer this one – most of my time is spent pitching. I’ll drive myself insane if I also have to deal with batting BS.

Swaldo for your confidence test on this....

Just a suggestion....Maybe you can test x amount of games with confidence turned off. This way all the individual pitches will have a static attribute for the entire game no matter what and it could be easier to track stats. This way you can only look at overall pitcher confidence.

<O</O
Good point, but that’s assuming that your #1-5 pitches would have identical quality. The confidence is taken away but you’re still left with a pitcher “preferring” his #1 pitch as compared to his #4 pitch. Do you know if this would be the case? Also, I played one game with confidence off and it felt too generic. I like the challenge of working on pitches and trying to keep the confidence high. I might be testing but I also want to have fun while doing it. <O</O
<O</O

[Phoenixmgs]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

The confidence is taken away but you’re still left with a pitcher “preferring” his #1 pitch as compared to his #4 pitch. Do you know if this would be the case? Also, I played one game with confidence off and it felt too generic. I like the challenge of working on pitches and trying to keep the confidence high. I might be testing but I also want to have fun while doing it.<o></o><o></o>

I've been playing with pitcher confidence off the whole time because in '06 it made a huge difference. Maybe I would be seeing more walks because if I'm hitting the fastball good maybe the CPU will throw more offspeed pitches which the pitcher should have less control in compared to the fastball, thus resulting in more balls and walks. I've always seen pitcher confidence as double the penalty for pitching bad and double the reward for pitching good.

[pbz06]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

This game is sooo hard to judge, it has such peaks and valleys within each inning and from game to game. LOL.

I'm playing around withmy slider set and Veteran now, with various teams and various quality pitchers just to get a feel for things that happen.

I'm almost 100% sold that the Confidence is the killer really, at least for me.

I was Texas (Padilla) going against NY (Joba) and lost 9-3. I was cruising at first, and was able to draw a couple of walks and timely hits for a 3-0 lead. Conveniantly the CPU wakes up and starts raking. Confidence just zeroes out after 3 batters rocket lasers, and mound visits don't seem to help me. Anyway, I end up giving up a 5-spot (I can never get the CPU to chip away or manufacture...it's ALWAYS a feast or famine type rally with them where everything just goes their way and everything just falls apart for me).

Fast forward, just when I thought I had Joba on the ropes, he settles in and his Confidence maxes out and I literally just get shut down the rest of the game.

Final boxscore is 9 runs, 17 hits (yes, 17), 0 errors for NY, and I got 3 runs on 8 hits and an error. I had 3 doubles and 0 homeruns, they had 2 doubles and 2 two-run homeruns.


Next game, I'm Arizona (Haren) playing at San Diego (Geer). I'm able to get 3 runs in the 1st and 2 runs in the 2nd...my offense seems to be cruising until I hit another wall and literally don't get a runner past 1st base after that. Geer settles down, his Confidence skyrockets and once again (as usual) my offense is done for the night. He becomes a greg maddux and just starts teasing me everywhere, painting corners, laying them down the middle only for me to pop them up over and over.

Needless to say, I shut them down easily myself and win 5-0. Haren was dealing and I had a complete game shutout with 11 K's and 5 singles given up total. I struck out 13 times myself (yikes, you know that amazing Geer and Sanchez, lol). At least I didn't sense any comeback or fishy play from the CPU except for their peaked confidence.

I notice that both my offense and CPU's offense seems to be on the feast or famine variety, all dependant on the pitcher's Confidence. I have to still manufacture for the most part, my offense is varied and realistic when I do actually score...but the CPU seems to go into "rocket" mode and just crushes the ball in their glory inning.

[pbz06]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Oh yea, here are my sliders for now:

Veteran

Global
Pitch Speed 5
Fielding Errors 6
Throwing Errors 4
Fielder Run Speed 0
Fielder Reaction 3
Fielder Arm Strength 3
Baserunner Speed 5
Baserunner Steal Ability 5
Baserunner Steal Frequency 6
Wind 3
Injury Frequency 0 (Preference)

User
Contact 5
Power 7
Timing 5
Fouls 5
Solid Hits 5
Starter Stamina 5
Reliever Stamina 0
Pitcher Control 5
Pitcher Consistency 5

CPU
Contact 3
Power 5
Timing 3
Fouls 5
Solid Hits 3
Starter Stamina 5
Reliever Stamina 0
Pitcher Control 5
Pitcher Consistency 3
Strike Frequency 0
Manager Hook 6
Pickoffs 2

[bigjake62505]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

How do you turn off the confidence? I think the confidence is a huge problem with the computer pitchers. When a pitcher gains high confidence there is no you are going to get a rally going. Last night I was Playing the white sox in a close game. I was down 3-2. Their pitcher was cruzing and his confidence was high. 5 times I had wheelhouse/perfect timing hits that were choppers/pop outs. Now I know not every time I swing the bat I am going to get a hit but just to watch the path of the ball looks so fake and intentional. I would understand if it was a hard hit ball caught in the out field or a hard line drive to a ss but its not.

[stewaat]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

I'm seeing way too much variance to draw a conclusion! That's just the truth in my case.

If I had to choose a side I'd say that clutch or something like leads to very strong rallies from the CPU.

[swaldo]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

I'm seeing way too much variance to draw a conclusion! That's just the truth in my case.

If I had to choose a side I'd say that clutch or something like leads to very strong rallies from the CPU.

It isn't clutch, go back and look at page 12....

[pbz06]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Just lost 2 more games late.

I was playing as Anaheim (Saunders) hosting Toronto (Halladay)...I was cruising and scraped a couple runs for a 2-0 lead and held on until the top of the 8th. I bring in a fresh Shields (Arredondo had a harmless 7th). He promptly gives up a leadoff opposite field homerun on the 1st pitch to Overbay. I aimed for a low and away fastball but the tractor beam got a hold of it and it sailed right down the heart of the plate. Great here we go, this smells like a God inning. Next batter just doesn't fall for any teasing. I miss by millimeters and he doesn't even flinch. He also starts fouling off like crazy, and eventually smacks a laser shot for a single. At this point I know it's God inning because laser shots and long at-bats are always a tell. Deep breath, double smacked into the gap, and I mean scorcher. 2nd and 3rd no with zero outs. Mound visit. Rolen comes up and takes it deep for a 4-2 lead. I knew it.

Needless to say, next 3 batters go down easily without a whimper or a fight.

I lose game 4-2




Next game, I'm Yanks (Burnett) going at Baltimore (Guthrie). It's eerily similar to my previous game. Both pitchers are on their game, but I stake myself to a 2-0 lead (had to work extremely hard for them). So bottom of the 7th I bring in Bruney because AJ had his stamina depleted. I'm also warming up Marte and Ramirez because I know what awaits me. I'll skip the details, but let's just say God inning happened again. Back to back doubles, a single, and two walks later and a 2-1 lead with the bases loaded and 0 outs. I had a couple mound visits in there for good measure, brought in Marte to face Markakis. Also note, that during the last couple batters I saw the same things. Sudden deep counts that included fouling off anything close and not flinching on pitches that miss by a hair. Fast forward to Markakis again, routine grounder to Jeter, I'm thinking double play, but the ball rolls through his glove, two runners score and I'm down 3-2 suddenly.

I then get out of the inning easily by getting a strikeout, a pop out and a fly out. It's amazing how suddenly the CPU becomes so human once they get what they needed.

This is seriously getting frustrating. Again, this wasn't a comeback because these types of innings happen whether they are already ahead, tied, or behind. But they always do happen to me. Even in my wins, and even if my overall boxscore and stats look super realistic and pleasing....I just always go through an inning that feels completely scripted and completely out of my control. There's always a 3-spot somewhere or that one inning that got away from me. It's so rare to see a single run scored by the CPU at all.

[davewins]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

Yeah, and the CPU will do a mound visit after a few men get on where the pitcher's confidence is somewhere like 50% - 66% and the confidence gets bumped back up to 75% or higher. It's ridiculous.

I think it's honestly enough evidence that they try to make the CPU as tough as possible. That's ok if it's all legit but in this case it's not a fair playing ground.

[davewins]

Re: The Comeback AI thread

I've seen that quite a bit. The CPU comes back and ties it or takes the lead by one, then their bats get ice cold. Even if you have bases loaded with nobody out they'll pop it up and you get out without further damage. Doesn't happen all the time but enough to scratch my head.

Absolutley!! This happens ALL the time.