first pitch meatballs....bug?

[Levesque7]

I mentioned this earlier in the thread and of course it's ignored. This slider has always needed to be adjusted and seems like it's no difference this year. I'll have to try it out some more tonight, because I noticed there was seemingly too many 1st pitch fastballs as well. But this was in RttS and AA, where it makes sense that weaker pitchers are trying to get ahead.

ie: lower the slider guys, or up the difficulty...or both.

It's ignored because its not the same as every year. It's different this year. I've had every game since 08 and never had to adjust sliders before.

[TBone012984]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

Exactly. There is a difference between tweaking the sliders to make it more/less challenging and dealing with a fundamental gameplay flaw. You can't use the sliders to mask a bug this blatant. There are numerous posts in this thread that confirms this. Only way to fix is for SECA to patch.

[dalger21]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

My RttS player got promoted to AAA and I still see 70-80 first pitch fastballs (or whatever their "no 1" pitch is) right down the middle. I was on AS but bumped up to HoF and it made zero difference. My player is currently hitting about a combined .400 with 43 HR and 139 RBI and its July 31. I generally never mess with sliders but apparently I need to. Seems....strange that just about every first pitch is right down the middle.

[TBone012984]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

BTW, I created a "bug report" ticket on their site and I saw atleast one other person reported the same bug so hopefully it's looked into soon...

[jmik58]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

Not that it matters how you define it, but what if this is less of a "bug" and more a gameplay design done intentionally to help the user have more offensive success? There is always give and take with the "fun" versus "realism" crowd, and this could be an example of the "fun" side bleeding into our realm of realism.

[orion523]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

If this indeed an issue it's going to have to be proven to the guys in charge, so I did some research and the results were interesting. First off, on average the first pitch strike happens roughly 60% of the time with the Phils Cliff Lee leading the way at 71.6% so the first thing that needs to be done is first pitch strike tracking to see if it does indeed mimic real life.
From there we get into the strategy of whether to swing or not to swing, and which option is better for the team overall, this article was absolutely fascinating and I suggest reading it, what it suggests is that even though BABIP(.315) for first pitch strikes is much better than overall BABIP(.297), batters are actually swinging less! To me this has everything to do with pitch count and the desire of nearly every MLB club to get into the opponents bullpen. What do you guys think? Here's the article

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...h-strike-game/


Another theory I have is this, maybe it's not the first pitch strikes that are the problem, maybe it's that hitting is too easy and that's what needs to be lowered with sliders. Checking this is easy as well, calculate BABIP for first pitch hits.

[bcruise]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

Want to reiterate something H&V posted earlier in the thread, because it's really important - If you're going to test this (and by all means do that if you think there's a problem here), test it with CPU only games. You're not going to prove anything by just standing up at the plate and taking the first pitch of every at bat because the CPU is going to throw you an abnormally high number of strikes if that is the case. If it's doing this when the AI is playing itself...then that's an issue.

[zpq12]

Exactly. There is a difference between tweaking the sliders to make it more/less challenging and dealing with a fundamental gameplay flaw. You can't use the sliders to mask a bug this blatant. There are numerous posts in this thread that confirms this. Only way to fix is for SECA to patch.

That is exactly how I feel.

I can add to the discussion and generate some data later tonight if need be. Working late and basketball league really get in the way of investigating video game bugs. :|

[daddies3angels]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

I have played AA, AAA, MLB now on my RTTS. AA you could count on geting meat pitches every AB. AAA it got better and prollly halve the AB. Now im in majors and pitchers seem to be pitching me alot better. THere is still some meatballs but far from what i was getting in AA. I think it has to do what ratings you have also. If you have low ratings pitchers more likely to come at you where when you get your ratings up pitchers shy away more

[dkrause1971]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

This is part of the problem, people are talking about different modes in this thread. Its different in RTTS then in exhibition. Or it could the same problem but since the thread is mixed with guys from different modes its confusing. In exhibition its the first pitch of every inning, not every AB. In RTTS its apparently every AB, although they do not bat every inning so it could be tied together somehow.

I have posted my testing from exhibition games. The first pitch of the inning is almost always the #1 pitch (very high percentage) and its down the middle (also very high). This also appears to happen the first pitch of a reliever coming in as well but my sample size is smaller for that. This differs from the rest of the ABs which is a mix of pitches, location, etc. Now you can sim to each inning or you can play each inning, whatever you like, i got the same results. Again, its not every AB, its the very first pitch of the first batter you have up that inning.

I'll take a look at CPU vs CPU for the heck of it. When i am crushing the first pitch of the inning, then simming to the next inning (my later tests i was doing this), i do not see why the cpu would consistently throw the same pitch down the middle each time though. Numerous batters apart and first pitch hitting with damage.

[AUTiger1]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

This should do the trick, yes. Drop it to 2-3 you'll see a difference.

I dropped CPU pitch consistent, strike and control all the way to 0 and it took all the way until the 2nd batter of the 6th inning to finally get a first pitch that wasn't a fastball for a strike. It was a slider inside off the plate to a right-handed batter. I've only be able to get to 2 balls on 3 or 4 batters in almost 3 full games of playing so far.

[AJColossal]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

FWIW, I too was noticing the same weird first pitch meatball tendencies on All-Star. Like every first pitch was a strike to start the game, etc.

So all I did was turn down the CPU pitch control slider one tick, and the next time I tested, the CPU threw a ball on the first pitch, lol.

I think I'm satisfied with that. A lot of this stuff can be up for debate, but as long as things aren't 100% predictable, I'm ok.

[metal134]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

Not that it matters how you define it, but what if this is less of a "bug" and more a gameplay design done intentionally to help the user have more offensive success? There is always give and take with the "fun" versus "realism" crowd, and this could be an example of the "fun" side bleeding into our realm of realism.

This is what I fear. That's it's not a bug, but intentional.

FTW, I'm seeing the same thing that everyone else is seeing.

[royals852]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

Through 2 games i havent seen that many. Most are strikes but not meatballs. The ones that have been. Usually are on the 1st pitch of the inning.

[C_Bailey24]

Re: first pitch meatballs....bug?

I dropped CPU pitch consistent, strike and control all the way to 0 and it took all the way until the 2nd batter of the 6th inning to finally get a first pitch that wasn't a fastball for a strike. It was a slider inside off the plate to a right-handed batter. I've only be able to get to 2 balls on 3 or 4 batters in almost 3 full games of playing so far.

Were you letting every first pitch go by?