A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

[baa7]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

This is where things can get tricky. Hitting a ball hard doesn't always mean hitting a lot of home runs for players. There are guys who just don't uppercut the ball to generate the backspin necesarry to hit a lot of HR's, but still hit a ton of extremely hard line drives that take guys heads off.

This is easily accomplished in 2K baseball. The contact rating acts as a "loft" modifier. The higher the contact rating, the more loft a player gets on the ball. So it's easy to create players who hit the ball hard but don't get a lot of loft. When I was editing players in 2K5 and 2K7, I would assign the bigger, stronger players who had low batting averages (typically Catchers, for example) a high power rating: power @ 80; contact @ 30... something like that. That way when they came to bat, I had to play my infield back, knowing they would hit the ball hard and probably along the ground. For smaller players with low batting averages, I'd assign them lower power ratings: power @ 30; contact @ 30, etc. When they were up to bat, I could take a chance and bring my infielders in a bit, knowing they tended to the ball softly.

The general problem with the default ratings is players fall into two basic catagories: the stars with high power and contact; and the scrubs with low power and contact. But it's possible to create a number of different hitter types, just using those two ratings. But 2K doesn't do it, because if you sim games with those players, the players with 80 power are going to hit a ton of HR's, regardless of their contact rating. The sim engine and the gameplay engine are two entirely different animals, and that's why one (realistic gameplay) is being sacrificed on behalf of the other (realistic sim results).

[Lisa_Bonami]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

Baa7, very well said and might I throw another morsel of food for thought into what you just said?

How does the HR, Triples and Doubles Rating also play into your strategy of setting the Contact and Power Rating of a player? Im wondering if these ratings are used only when simming to get more accurate numbers in line with statistics or are they also globbed on top of the Contact and Power attributes to add even more 'prescripted-ness' into real time gameplay variables?


Not to throw an even uglier animal ingredient into this tastey stew with no name, but what about CLUTCH ratings?......In Front Page Sports Baseball, they included a bunch of modifiers that were supposed to enhance more timely occurences of certain outcomes based on such variables as Monthly Modifiers, Late & Close Hitting Ratings, Clutch Hitting.

However this could spawn off an entirely different discussion of whether or not clutch hitting is a reality or just a coincidence of averages that just seem to favor some more than others

[baa7]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

How does the HR, Triples and Doubles Rating also play into your strategy of setting the Contact and Power Rating of a player? Im wondering if these ratings are used only when simming to get more accurate numbers in line with statistics or are they also globbed on top of the Contact and Power attributes to add even more 'prescripted-ness' into real time gameplay variables?

I don't know if those ratings are sim ratings, or if they "pre-determine" the type of hit a player ends up with in user games. I've always just created my own ratings scale, plugged in the appropriate rating, and left it at that. HR's, Triples and Doubles ratings aren't in the game this year, are they?

[Lisa_Bonami]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

I thought I saw them in one of this years screen shots under the player creation screen....I could be wrong tho

[JBH3]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

This is a very good thread.

To add to triples - shouldn't more than speed be considered.

There are other ratings which factor into the effectiveness of a players baserunning skills; however can't remember them off the top of my head.

For ex... Jimmy Rollins makes a decision once he's just slapped a ball down the 1B line wo before rounding first he can see/knows where the ball is caroming to, and knows he can stretch for a triple whereas someone else would be a little more hesitant.

Jimmy gets into third on a slide, and the hesitant baserunner whose speed is the same overruns 2nd in route to 3rd and has to go back to 2nd because of his initial hesitation.

A cool idea...To improve on that would be to have a hm/away sort of feel.

Jimmy knows how a ball hit like that in CBP would play, whereas he wouldn't have the same knowledge on the exact same hit in say Petco.

[Lisa_Bonami]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

JB, while I can understand what your saying, I think that would be quite a stretch for the designers to program that level of detail into the AI. I may be wrong tho...

Im just really concerned about the ratings artifically skewing real physics generated results to meet certain predefined statistical criterias that these Homerun, Triple and Double Sliders may impose.


On a side note, Is it possible to now randomly play any game in your Franchise between any 2 teams if you want to reproduce kinda like a "This week in Baseball" Game of the Week?

I know in the 2K9 versions of NHL 2k and NBA 2K you can randomly play any matchup within your franchise if you get bored of just playing with your own team from time to time. I think this is a great feature and hope it carries out to MLB 2K9 as well.

And did the game add any of the real time Pitch History info that you can pull up with a simple button press similar to the one in the MLB the Show and you can see a pitch grid that plots all of the pitches, locations, pitch type in that player's At Bat.

[thundergatti]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

[QUOTE=Lisa_Bonami;2039193687]

In 2K, there is almost, dare I say, a light scripted feel to the variety of ball contact and hit placement....


There should be no shame in saying this; the game is scripted. For example, in MLB 2k8, in the second game of my Yankees Franchise, in the second inning, Andy Pettitte got smashed in the face with a line drive and was injured. I continued playing the game, but quit in like the fifth or sixth inning because I had something else to do. Later on, I fired up the franchise and started the second game anew. Low and behold, second inning, Pettitte gets hit by a rocket again. Out. At this point, I quit and restarted. Same thing happened. This infuriated me, because it became apparent that the quality and location of my pitch had no effect on the AI batter's performance.

[mike360]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

[quote=thundergatti;2039201693]

In 2K, there is almost, dare I say, a light scripted feel to the variety of ball contact and hit placement....


There should be no shame in saying this; the game is scripted. For example, in MLB 2k8, in the second game of my Yankees Franchise, in the second inning, Andy Pettitte got smashed in the face with a line drive and was injured. I continued playing the game, but quit in like the fifth or sixth inning because I had something else to do. Later on, I fired up the franchise and started the second game anew. Low and behold, second inning, Pettitte gets hit by a rocket again. Out. At this point, I quit and restarted. Same thing happened. This infuriated me, because it became apparent that the quality and location of my pitch had no effect on the AI batter's performance.

Wow.. I'm speechless.

[glcmustliveon]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

Statistical studies have shown that triples are no different than doubles, except for speed (maybe a little bit of baserunning acumen like a previous poster said). As such, a triples slider is absolutley unnecessary. Triples should be based on Power and speed, thats it. Further more, it seems like a doubles/homeruns slider is unnecessary as well. Why not have homeruns/doubles dependant on two categories, Power and flyball % or something.

[mike360]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

Statistical studies have shown that triples are no different than doubles, except for speed (maybe a little bit of baserunning acumen like a previous poster said). As such, a triples slider is absolutley unnecessary. Triples should be based on Power and speed, thats it. Further more, it seems like a doubles/homeruns slider is unnecessary as well. Why not have homeruns/doubles dependant on two categories, Power and flyball % or something.

I like that idea. The game would definately be more dynamic - more like real baseball.

[JonahFalcon]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

I don't like that there is a triples rating.

In real baseball, a triple is more a function of speed than anything else.

Oh? Explain Steve Balboni's 11 career triples.

Speed is one thing. Big, spacious ballpark is another.

[JonahFalcon]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

Anyway, triples rating and the others aren't used for gameplay - they're used for stat simulation.

MLB 2K9 can sim an entire season in a few minutes.

[stateprop]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

What you guys think of last year ERA stats. I think it sill needed to be tweak seeing alot of 75 ovrl sometime lower overall Pitchers with 2-3 era winning cy youngs and making it to the all-start game. I really hope they fix that. And im glad to hear the triples rating is fix dude that arent even fast have alot of triples which was mind-boggling.

[faster]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

Doubles are a product of your swing and your power. You can either be a doubles hitter because you lack HR power but are a good hitter, or you, can also be a gap hitter with great power. Sometimes you have guys with blazing speed that just push hard but that's more rare.

I was a tremendous doubles hitter. I averaged more doubles than singles. I hit the ball where it was pitched but was a natural pull hitter. On top of that I had a very level, powerful swing, which also resulted in good HR power. The ending result was that I drove the ball hard, but didn't get it up in the air and shot the gaps often.

If you look at the majors, the type of player I resembled usually turns out to be doubles hitters. Looking at the list, you'll find great "hitters" first, and not necessarily sluggers, who waste far too many at bats getting the ball UP.

The above rambling aside, a rating system for doubles and triples is ridiculous, UNLESS, it actually dictates where they hit the ball.. tendencies. Guys that are gap hitters are doubles hitters. Line drive hitters with good power. So if you have a high double rating, you're a gap hitter, you'll hit gaps more often than being a dead pull hitter. Triples hitters are usually speedy and spread the ball out everywhere. They're harder to gameplan for. They also don't overpower usually either. So that attribute would be how often the ball is spread out... do you hit it where it's pitched, and do you have speed. The triple is a much harder attribute to pin down, and probably one that just doesn't work.

[JBH3]

Re: A STAT engine question about 2K9...Deep Thinkers Only...

JB, while I can understand what your saying, I think that would be quite a stretch for the designers to program that level of detail into the AI. I may be wrong tho...

Im just really concerned about the ratings artifically skewing real physics generated results to meet certain predefined statistical criterias that these Homerun, Triple and Double Sliders may impose.


On a side note, Is it possible to now randomly play any game in your Franchise between any 2 teams if you want to reproduce kinda like a "This week in Baseball" Game of the Week?

I know in the 2K9 versions of NHL 2k and NBA 2K you can randomly play any matchup within your franchise if you get bored of just playing with your own team from time to time. I think this is a great feature and hope it carries out to MLB 2K9 as well.

And did the game add any of the real time Pitch History info that you can pull up with a simple button press similar to the one in the MLB the Show and you can see a pitch grid that plots all of the pitches, locations, pitch type in that player's At Bat.

There are already one or two sliders which sort of drive the baserunners awareness on the base paths.

I don't know how into detail they get in terms of coding, but look at any player card in 2K8 and there are/is a slider for something along the lines of attentiveness/awareness.