TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

V2 beta changes:

Human timing raised to 6

CPU control lowered to 3

CPU consistency raised to 8

These are changes made in order to have more human/CPU parity. Raising human contact to 6 or lowering CPU contact to 2 will provide true mechanical parity as mentioned in the OP, but I'm attempting to use the timing slider as a halfway compensation buff. The CPU slider cannot go any lower without causing serious issues in CPU pitch vision and selection, and I'm not a fan of the idea of raising human contact, but I may eventually concede that it's needed. Of course that puts a serious wrinkle in the plans to make a legendary set.

These changes have made it past practice mode testing and will now be implemented into my franchises for longer term testing.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

I've gone back to attempting mechanical parity. It's frustrating both from a gameplay and a testing perspective to not have it.

The theory is that if you find mechanical parity too hard or too easy, you can always adjust pitch speed to compensate.

Right now I'm testing lowering the CPU contact to 2 but raising the timing to 6, like the compensation buff I gave the player, and hoping my previous results about contact being tied to pitch selection were a result of too small a sample size.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

[canes21]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

So, I hope you don't mind me asking a question here. I've recently switched back to Directional for my sliders because I got tired of using zone and felt I was potentially getting too much contact and too many well hit balls due to getting the PCI on the ball too often.

That being said, I knew switching to directional would lead to me needing to tune my sliders on Legend because Directional tends to be "weaker" for the user in terms of offensive productivity. What I am seeing right now is that I am getting the amount of swings and misses I'd want to see on mistimed swings and even on good timing swings for the user, but it seems that my contact I am getting is not solid enough consistently. For example, I'll take and get into hitter counts with Freeman, Acuna, and Brantley(traded for in franchise) and get a good fastball in the zone to hit and it seems if I do get a hit out of it that it is just a line drive single over the infielders' heads. I'm not seeing truly solid contact to the wall, in the gaps, or enough HRs. My assumption is to raise Solid Hits, but I have a sneaking suspicion based off of your description of the Timing slider that may be playing a role in it as well. I say that because I seeing I get just early contact on a lot of those balls and it seems that by not getting good I am getting weaker contact.

I have two fears with adjustments. Raising the timing will lead to me not being punished with mistiming my swings as much as it should. Raising solid hits will lead to me not seeing choppers and weak contact as much.

What would your recommendation be? Would simply clicking Power up one actually potentially help? It hasn't seemed like the logical step because when I do get the squared up ball it comes off the bat hard, the issue is the lack of hard hit balls into the gap or over the fence right now which is why I was leaning towards raising Solid Hits.

Edit: Essentially the issue seems to be the AI isn't getting the middle PCI on the ball as much as I think it should when I get a good pitch and time it up. It seems that the way I am understanding your descriptions is that contact dictates how often any of the PCI gets to the ball and Solid Hits dictates how well the AI manages to get the middle PCI on the ball. Is that a proper way of interpreting it?

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

So, I hope you don't mind me asking a question here. I've recently switched back to Directional for my sliders because I got tired of using zone and felt I was potentially getting too much contact and too many well hit balls due to getting the PCI on the ball too often.

That being said, I knew switching to directional would lead to me needing to tune my sliders on Legend because Directional tends to be "weaker" for the user in terms of offensive productivity. What I am seeing right now is that I am getting the amount of swings and misses I'd want to see on mistimed swings and even on good timing swings for the user, but it seems that my contact I am getting is not solid enough consistently. For example, I'll take and get into hitter counts with Freeman, Acuna, and Brantley(traded for in franchise) and get a good fastball in the zone to hit and it seems if I do get a hit out of it that it is just a line drive single over the infielders' heads. I'm not seeing truly solid contact to the wall, in the gaps, or enough HRs. My assumption is to raise Solid Hits, but I have a sneaking suspicion based off of your description of the Timing slider that may be playing a role in it as well. I say that because I seeing I get just early contact on a lot of those balls and it seems that by not getting good I am getting weaker contact.

I have two fears with adjustments. Raising the timing will lead to me not being punished with mistiming my swings as much as it should. Raising solid hits will lead to me not seeing choppers and weak contact as much.

What would your recommendation be? Would simply clicking Power up one actually potentially help? It hasn't seemed like the logical step because when I do get the squared up ball it comes off the bat hard, the issue is the lack of hard hit balls into the gap or over the fence right now which is why I was leaning towards raising Solid Hits.

Edit: Essentially the issue seems to be the AI isn't getting the middle PCI on the ball as much as I think it should when I get a good pitch and time it up. It seems that the way I am understanding your descriptions is that contact dictates how often any of the PCI gets to the ball and Solid Hits dictates how well the AI manages to get the middle PCI on the ball. Is that a proper way of interpreting it?

Based on what you said, I actually think it's the contact slider you need to raise, although I'll admit that part of the reason why I assume this is because they took a hammer to the contact slider on legendary this year.

Having the contact slider at 10 on legendary is still less then having the contact slider at 5 on HoF. You can see this effect for yourself by going into practice mode using zone and taking a swing. Take a picture of the swing feedback using the share function, then exit the mode, adjust your difficulty and/or contact slider, then re-enter practice mode making sure you choose the same batter and pitcher matchup. Setting and take another photo of the feedback. Go to MLB 20s media too find your pictures, and compare the two.

You can extrapolate the other factors that contact controls (check swing ease, bat exit velocity floors, etc) by the relative size of the PCI. And yes this does translate back to directional when your done. The only difference between the two modes is the timing window.

Note: you can also use this technic to set up mechanical parity between yourself and the CPU, just keep in mind that the CPU uses the contact swing (circle) a lot, even in situations you would expect it not to. As this effects the size of the PCI you'll have to use circle as well when testing human/CPU parity.

If you still feel like contact isn't the answer, then yes one of timing or solid hits is the answer. Since you're happy with your strikeout ratio, I'd start with solid hits.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

OP and vault updated. I've been wanting to push through an update for a while, but having to throw out a bunch of results set me back.

You'd think with nothing but time on my hands I'd be able to push out results faster, but my friends also have a lot more time on their hands and want to play online games during the evenings. I'd play during the day, but the glare off my TV in my corner condo (facing southeast no less) often makes that impossible.

I'm pushing out these sliders not because I'm so confident in all of them, but because I'm confident in some of them, and the other changes are because I wanted you all to see the issues I was having on V1 and what I'm attempting to do to fix them.

[nolczyk16]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

Hey guys & WarmWind, first time commented but long time admirer of your work. Loving all of the knowledge here and can’t thank everyone enough for making this the game we needed during times like this.

Question for you - in terms of the WIND slider...I’ve always used it at 10, which in my mind makes it the most realistic feel. It doesn’t “add” wind to games, but rather EFFECTS the ball (meaning that if you hit into 18mph gusts, the ball ain’t leaving the park). What’re your thoughts on this? (I know you play with it at 9)

I play my franchise with the Cubs and most games at Wrigley there’s 10-20mph wind and I’ve had games where the wind is blowing out = high scoring games with lots of HRs...and I’ve had quite a few games where the wind is blowing in or from RF to LF, etc and they’ve resulted in low scoring games.

Should I tune the slider lower? Does it even make sense to move it up...for more “realism” at 10?

Interested to see if this makes sense to anyone, thank you all!


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

Hey guys & WarmWind, first time commented but long time admirer of your work. Loving all of the knowledge here and can’t thank everyone enough for making this the game we needed during times like this.

Question for you - in terms of the WIND slider...I’ve always used it at 10, which in my mind makes it the most realistic feel. It doesn’t “add” wind to games, but rather EFFECTS the ball (meaning that if you hit into 18mph gusts, the ball ain’t leaving the park). What’re your thoughts on this? (I know you play with it at 9)

I play my franchise with the Cubs and most games at Wrigley there’s 10-20mph wind and I’ve had games where the wind is blowing out = high scoring games with lots of HRs...and I’ve had quite a few games where the wind is blowing in or from RF to LF, etc and they’ve resulted in low scoring games.

Should I tune the slider lower? Does it even make sense to move it up...for more “realism” at 10?

Interested to see if this makes sense to anyone, thank you all!


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

I find that the headwind and crosswind effects are the most accurate at 10, but the tailwind effects are too much, that is the only reason I turned it down to 9.

If I could set each wind effect individually, head and crosswind would both be at 10. If you don't mind a little bit too much tailwind, keep your setting at 10.

It becomes a real issue in specific parks. I know Yankee stadium had a reputation in real life for having a strong and prevailing tailwind, but with wind at 10 pop flies become line outs, and everything else in the air becomes a home run. At 9 I'm getting much more realistic tailwind results, though again admittedly at the cost of head and crosswind realism.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

[nolczyk16]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

I find that the headwind and crosswind effects are the most accurate at 10, but the tailwind effects are too much, that is the only reason I turned it down to 9.

If I could set each wind effect individually, head and crosswind would both be at 10. If you don't mind a little bit too much tailwind, keep your setting at 10.

It becomes a real issue in specific parks. I know Yankee stadium had a reputation in real life for having a strong and prevailing tailwind, but with wind at 10 pop flies become line outs, and everything else in the air becomes a home run. At 9 I'm getting much more realistic tailwind results, though again admittedly at the cost of head and crosswind realism.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

Understood, thanks so much for the reply man! Keep doing what you do best, it’s all so very much appreciated


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

OK spent all morning in the practice mode and it turns out that no, lowering power is not the solution. It does increase hit variety but at the cost of lowering the bat exit velocity ceiling.

That's the good news. Bat exit velocity ceilings are easy to test, especially now with perfect perfect being a thing.

The bad news is I need to find some other way to reduce the frequency of high bat exit velocities without manipulating the ceiling, which likely means playing with the contact slider to reduce the bat exit velocity floor further. And playing with the contact slider is like pulling on a thread from an old sweater. I may solve one problem only to cause two more to pop up.

I did make a set that I was getting wonderful results from. I had moved past practice mode and was starting long term franchise playtesting but then the rainy morning turned into a sunny afternoon, so play had to stop.

There is nowhere near enough playtesting on these sliders to call them an official change, but for the overeager here is what I got:

Human contact to 3
Human power to 5
Human Solid Hits to 6

CPU contact to 0
CPU power to 5
CPU solid hits to 5

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

6 games and another hour in the practice range and it looks like I was right! Lowering contact pulled bat exit velocity averages down while maintaining the ceiling.

The mechanical parity is nice, but the CPUs inability to match my skill level when it comes to pitch selection and timing is a problem. It's actually more of an issue from the pitching side then the batting side. I feel it's too easy to mess up the CPUs timing and the zone stops being a threat. Don't get me wrong, you start throwing pitches in the same place over and over and the CPU will still punish you, but in order to play with my level of pitching consistency and still give up a reasonable number of walks, the zone needs to be a real threat.

It's not all bad news, because if my results hold, all that needs to be tuned is offensive/defensive balance. Once that's done, I may end up changing my pitch speed recommendation from user's skill to "as fast as you possibly can make them" in order to ensure skill parity along with mechanical. You need to have as much trouble selecting and timing pitches as the CPU does.

[The Kid 24]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

How's CPU bullpen management with the new settings of 8/8/5?

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

How's CPU bullpen management with the new settings of 8/8/5?

Honestly can't say yet. As I've said I've never managed to find the settings that truly make me satisfied with bullpen management, only close the gap. Hard to say if that gap has tightened or widened with such a small data set.

If I fly by the seat of my pants and take a guess based on what I've seen so far, I'd say that starter management has improved over the 7/7/6 setting, but I've liked the bullpen decision making less.

[Sairheart]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

hey, just reading through the thread and seeing how you said Legend really has knocked down the contact slider. I'm buying the game next week(i normally wait until early bugs get figured out and sliders get tested etc) and I'll be using your sliders, on Legend, pulse/zone. Should I be making some adjustments because I'm on legend or will I be good as is? Thanks!

[TheWarmWind]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

hey, just reading through the thread and seeing how you said Legend really has knocked down the contact slider. I'm buying the game next week(i normally wait until early bugs get figured out and sliders get tested etc) and I'll be using your sliders, on Legend, pulse/zone. Should I be making some adjustments because I'm on legend or will I be good as is? Thanks!

Couple of things.

First of all, so far I've identified three (slider related) things that change between batting skill levels. Pitch speeds, CPU pitcher consistency, and Human Contact. I've only been able to nail down Human Contact, which I have confirmed is 5 notches on the contact slider different.

CPU pitcher consistency needs to be lower on Legend, but I haven't identified by how much yet, and I probably won't take the time to find out until I've locked in my HoF set. You'll have to adjust this one on your own. The goal is to have mechanical parity with the CPU, so a pitcher with equal attributes can match consistency regardless of whether you or the CPU is controlling them. Probably a good idea to start one level lower than my settings and then adjust down.

I think pitch speeds might be the same as HoF, but they definitely get slower at lower levels. Shouldn't matter though as like I say, pitch speeds need to be tuned to the user.

There may be other factors that I haven't identified. As long as I'm still locking down my HoF set, I doubt I'll find the time to figure this out or not. Reasonably safe bet that I have, but no way in heck am I guaranteeing it.

Secondly, I would consider my sliders far from finished. I didn't finish last years sets until November. That was exceptionally late and I had a huge delay thanks to my condo getting flooded (so much for living on the fourth floor), but I've never locked in my sliders before mid-summer. This game unfortunately requires massive sample sizes.

Lastly, you should know that I believe I'm on the cusp of releasing V3. That is until some other long term data set is skewed and I have to go fixing it. I release these "versions" before my final sliders as a sort of beta or preview at what I'm testing, but I try not to make releases unless I can be sure that a version is better than the last one.

[Sairheart]

Re: TheWarmWind's Impact Sliders 2020

Couple of things.

First of all, so far I've identified three (slider related) things that change between batting skill levels. Pitch speeds, CPU pitcher consistency, and Human Contact. I've only been able to nail down Human Contact, which I have confirmed is 5 notches on the contact slider different.

CPU pitcher consistency needs to be lower on Legend, but I haven't identified by how much yet, and I probably won't take the time to find out until I've locked in my HoF set. You'll have to adjust this one on your own. The goal is to have mechanical parity with the CPU, so a pitcher with equal attributes can match consistency regardless of whether you or the CPU is controlling them. Probably a good idea to start one level lower than my settings and then adjust down.

I think pitch speeds might be the same as HoF, but they definitely get slower at lower levels. Shouldn't matter though as like I say, pitch speeds need to be tuned to the user.

There may be other factors that I haven't identified. As long as I'm still locking down my HoF set, I doubt I'll find the time to figure this out or not. Reasonably safe bet that I have, but no way in heck am I guaranteeing it.

Secondly, I would consider my sliders far from finished. I didn't finish last years sets until November. That was exceptionally late and I had a huge delay thanks to my condo getting flooded (so much for living on the fourth floor), but I've never locked in my sliders before mid-summer. This game unfortunately requires massive sample sizes.

Lastly, you should know that I believe I'm on the cusp of releasing V3. That is until some other long term data set is skewed and I have to go fixing it. I release these "versions" before my final sliders as a sort of beta or preview at what I'm testing, but I try not to make releases unless I can be sure that a version is better than the last one.

Copy, no problem. I'll check back in as things go along. Thanks again!