Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

[nomo17k]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Can you try some future games with sliders reset to default, particularly pitch speed? I'm just curious if this is affecting your results, because it should.

I can, but if my past experimentations (since MLB 11) are still applicable, then I did not see the magnitude of steal failures caused by Pitch Speed slider = 10 alone before.

For CPU vs. CPU experiments, I've always used max pitch speed, but if it had any effect on steal success, then I've only seen that go down in 65 - 70% range (compared to about 73% for MLB). Certainly not down to 30% or so that I'm seeing now.

This spreadsheet is from MLB 13, the last year's game: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...=sharing#gid=0

I use the same stats template this year as well.

[Brian SCEA]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

I can, but if my past experimentations (since MLB 11) are still applicable, then I did not see the magnitude of steal failures caused by Pitch Speed slider = 10 alone before.

Yes, seeing that you have almost 5000 AB I wouldn't see pitch speed accounting for that big of a difference. Just to confirm, have you tried any games post-patch?

Runners steal proportional to their steal ability with restrictions and cutoffs based on the situation. If you're seeing very slow runners steal regularly, it's a hit and run and the patch should address that by making the batter swing.

[nomo17k]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Yes, seeing that you have almost 5000 AB I wouldn't see pitch speed accounting for that big of a difference. Just to confirm, have you tried any games post-patch?

Runners steal proportional to their steal ability with restrictions and cutoffs based on the situation. If you're seeing very slow runners steal regularly, it's a hit and run and the patch should address that by making the batter swing.

I will check the version once the game currently running wraps up. The only patch that I remember applying is the usual one that gets applied the first time that I install the game (version 1.08 I believe). If there was something after that I don't think I have applied it yet.

[Brian SCEA]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

I will check the version once the game currently running wraps up. The only patch that I remember applying is the usual one that gets applied the first time that I install the game (version 1.08 I believe). If there was something after that I don't think I have applied it yet.

No that's up to date. The last set I ran was 70SB 17CS, but there must be something we're doing differently. I'm going to try different kinds of tests and see what I can find.

Sorry to say but I can't test on the same 1.08 version in order to rule out a difference there. And most of my data is from across the entire year, so if something broke at 1.08 and was later fixed I only have X days of data that would flag that. Looking at the days leading up to 1.08 I don't see anything unusual in my simulation history.

But I imagine with the big gap that whatever is happening it's something you can see what's wrong when it happens (bad runners stealing, runners thrown out by a large margin, bugs, etc..).

[nomo17k]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

No that's up to date. The last set I ran was 70SB 17CS, but there must be something we're doing differently. I'm going to try different kinds of tests and see what I can find.

Sorry to say but I can't test on the same 1.08 version in order to rule out a difference there. And most of my data is from across the entire year, so if something broke at 1.08 and was later fixed I only have X days of data that would flag that. Looking at the days leading up to 1.08 I don't see anything unusual in my simulation history.

But I imagine with the big gap that whatever is happening it's something you can see what's wrong when it happens (bad runners stealing, runners thrown out by a large margin, bugs, etc..).

I just checked the version and it is 1.08.

It definitely looks a bit off compared to how steals occurred in the past.

From next dozen games or so I'll try to provide more specific examples from game replays that could potentially help identify what could be going wrong.

[BrianU]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Something else which may or may not be related to the steals but feels different from last year as well is pickoffs. Both user pickoffs and CPU pickoffs feel way too frequent. When in real life the numbers are: Pickoffs (successful per pickoff attempt) - 0.09, in MLB 14 it feels like 1 out of 8 attempts results in a succesful pickoff. I have not tested and I know it would be hard to track in CPU vs CPU but from my playing time it seems like it could use a looking into.

I made a bug report but dev response seemed to be towards pickoff attempts not pickoff success. http://theshownation.com/bug_reports/10566

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

You know, all this talk about what we thought we knew about the pitch speed slider got me wondering...

Does it impact the game in any other way, such as cpu hit timing? I mean it probably doesn't but since we're on the subject.

[ralphieboy11]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

I'm glad the stolen base thing is being looked into. Something really weird going on, especially with the 1.08 build we have. It doesn't appear to be the pitch speed either. I have that at default now.

I had moved my sliders to stolen base ability 9 and stolen base frequency 3 in hopes seeing something different. Very small sample size of only 16 games but right now it's 0.28 steals per game and 0.53 caught stealing per game. Even with that small of a sample size, I would think I would see something different with those drastic slider changes.

In the action I watched I saw Mitch Moreland, Hunter Pence and Miguel Montero all thrown out on steal attempts at 2nd base. I guess they could have been hit and runs where the batter just mistakenly didn't swing. All were thrown out on pitches that were taken by the batter.

[nonoirie]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Nomo,

4/9 tab. Row 23. Did Chris Sale threw no-hitter thru 5 innings and get yanked?

[nomo17k]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Nomo,

4/9 tab. Row 23. Did Chris Sale threw no-hitter thru 5 innings and get yanked?

Sorry that the spreadsheet is not very easy to understand. That line is hitting for CWS. So it's actually James Shields who pitched a no hitter. I think it was the second or third no-no I've seen in the game, haha...

[nonoirie]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Sorry that the spreadsheet is not very easy to understand. That line is hitting for CWS. So it's actually James Shields who pitched a no hitter. I think it was the second or third no-no I've seen in the game, haha...

Thank you for the clarification. I'm MoMer and I have yet seen a no hitter in any year.

Main reason why I asked you this is because I believe there is a hard-code behind the scene where CPU will leaves the pitcher in the game until their arms falls off if he's pitching a shut-out or better.

[ralphieboy11]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Thank you for the clarification. I'm MoMer and I have yet seen a no hitter in any year.

Main reason why I asked you this is because I believe there is a hard-code behind the scene where CPU will leaves the pitcher in the game until their arms falls off if he's pitching a shut-out or better.

Yep. And it's still there this year as well. I've seen a performance in the 140s already. I wish they could cap it at around 130, then bring in a reliever for the next batter after that.

[nonoirie]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Yep. And it's still there this year as well. I've seen a performance in the 140s already. I wish they could cap it at around 130, then bring in a reliever for the next batter after that.

IMO, if pitcher is throwing a no-hitter or better, the code should be triggered but not for shut-outs or worse.

[Brian SCEA]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Quick update. I look at this yesterday and this morning, and also ran some deeper tests overnight.

A few observations: Below average stealers (around 25 ability, 50 speed) fail more than they should, and it's partly hidden because they don't steal often to begin with. For decent stealers (50 ability, 75 speed) - let's call them "2nd-tier" stealers - a lot of steals are being decided by a very small margin (i.e. a few frames or <50-100ms), and this clustering is denser than it should be. Pitch speed can only account for a fraction of the difference, but still more than it would on paper because of the clustering. Something else must explain the rest of the gap. The most important lead I found was that certain pitchers appear to unrealistically hard to steal against.

I did a search and found one significant change from last year that would account for some of this. It's intended to aesthetically prevent runners from getting "too good" a jump against pitchers, but the actual result is that for pitchers with fast stretch deliveries and also 2nd and 3rd tier runners the steal balance is affected. It causes clustering where they're frequently "almost safe" because of the cap, and even a small shift either way will change steal balance more than it normally should. In addition, I'm looking at other factors related to this that make it hard for lower tiered runners to steal. Unfortunately, since the issue is caused by a cap, the base running slider will only help whenever the cap is not happening (ironically).

I'm working on other bugs as well, but when all things are done I'd be happy to go into more detail.

[Heroesandvillains]

Re: Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

Jeez...

A 75 game test and a PM get Brian to do an all nighter!

I know I've said it before but it's an absolute privilege to be able to play a game that receives so much Developer dedication. I know a lot in your industry are just as dedicated, but I DON'T KNOW how often you guys get thanked for it. So yeah. Thank you.

This aesthetic change you mentioned; do you feel that it's possible that steals can be improved on your end without compromising the reason behind the visual change? Or is it too early to tell?