One thing that is killing this game for me!

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Baa,

Will be interested in hearing your results. I don't mind doing manual editing to every team if it is going to help with the realism factor in this game.

Thanks
Jeff

Last night I took my 85-25-15-10 (Contact-2B-3B-HR) batting ratings roster and changed those numbers to 65-45-35-30. First thing I noticed: a LOT more weakly hit balls through the infield. So there does seem to be a relationship between lower Contact ratings and Contact slider, and the high number of dribblers that occur.

And I saw more high-fly power shots to the outfield. That's the 2B rating kicking in. It seems to add loft and "hit-the gaps" potential to the ball (a kind of pre-determined game programming, unfortunately and from the looks of it). Both the 2B and 3B batting ratings indirectly determine whether a player is a fly ball or ground ball hitter it seems. So just like the FPS and Hard Ball series, a person could more or less program specific players to be primarily ground ball or fly ball hitters, just by assigning 2B and 3B ratings. And HR ratings probably, but I haven't been checking the effects of those yet.

My concern is the increase in weakly hit balls, versus the high-fly power shots and the fact there's this sudden drop in hit variety when lowering Contact ratings. What I did to fix that is raise the AI Contact up to 95 and drop AI Skill to 50. I tried that for a bit and I did see less bloop grounders.

Unlike Rick (the eternal slider optimist :-) I don't think this game can be saved with sliders. The actual programming seems messed up -- too much Power assigned to the higher Contact ratings, for example. This is similar to but different than NFL 2K5. That game was ratched out of the box, with some serious programming imbalances that could be half-rescued with sliders @ 0 plus ratings edits. But from what I've seen so far, this game will never play as realistically as NFL 2K5 did even after editing, let alone relying on a slider fix only. A very unfortunate by-prodiuuct of rushing this game onto the market... though I still like the game for some odd reason -- John and Joe have a lot to do with that I think :-)

Anyway, bottom line: if using default rosters, try AI Contact @ 95 or even 100, and lower the AI Skill slider until just before the CPU always strikes out (30-40?) That might get rid of some of the dribblers at least.

[Slats90]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Last night I took my 85-25-15-10 (Contact-2B-3B-HR) batting ratings roster and changed those numbers to 65-45-35-30. First thing I noticed: a LOT more weakly hit balls through the infield. So there does seem to be a relationship between lower Contact ratings and Contact slider, and the high number of dribblers that occur.

And I saw more high-fly power shots to the outfield. That's the 2B rating kicking in. It seems to add loft and "hit-the gaps" potential to the ball (a kind of pre-determined game programming, unfortunately and from the looks of it). Both the 2B and 3B batting ratings indirectly determine whether a player is a fly ball or ground ball hitter it seems. So just like the FPS and Hard Ball series, a person could more or less program specific players to be primarily ground ball or fly ball hitters, just by assigning 2B and 3B ratings. And HR ratings probably, but I haven't been checking the effects of those yet.

My concern is the increase in weakly hit balls, versus the high-fly power shots and the fact there's this sudden drop in hit variety when lowering Contact ratings. What I did to fix that is raise the AI Contact up to 95 and drop AI Skill to 50. I tried that for a bit and I did see less bloop grounders.

Unlike Rick (the eternal slider optimist :-) I don't think this game can be saved with sliders. The actual programming seems messed up -- too much Power assigned to the higher Contact ratings, for example. This is similar to but different than NFL 2K5. That game was ratched out of the box, with some serious programming imbalances that could be half-rescued with sliders @ 0 plus ratings edits. But from what I've seen so far, this game will never play as realistically as NFL 2K5 did even after editing, let alone relying on a slider fix only. A very unfortunate by-prodiuuct of rushing this game onto the market... though I still like the game for some odd reason -- John and Joe have a lot to do with that I think :-)

Anyway, bottom line: if using default rosters, try AI Contact @ 95 or even 100, and lower the AI Skill slider until just before the CPU always strikes out (30-40?) That might get rid of some of the dribblers at least.

Baa,

I don't want to use default rosters. Would you recommend my changing the contact-2b-3b-Hr edits that you mentioned to 65-45-35-30 for everyone and use it with the sliders. Let me know what you think will work best for me.

Thanks
Jeff

[Slats90]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Last night I took my 85-25-15-10 (Contact-2B-3B-HR) batting ratings roster and changed those numbers to 65-45-35-30. First thing I noticed: a LOT more weakly hit balls through the infield. So there does seem to be a relationship between lower Contact ratings and Contact slider, and the high number of dribblers that occur.

And I saw more high-fly power shots to the outfield. That's the 2B rating kicking in. It seems to add loft and "hit-the gaps" potential to the ball (a kind of pre-determined game programming, unfortunately and from the looks of it). Both the 2B and 3B batting ratings indirectly determine whether a player is a fly ball or ground ball hitter it seems. So just like the FPS and Hard Ball series, a person could more or less program specific players to be primarily ground ball or fly ball hitters, just by assigning 2B and 3B ratings. And HR ratings probably, but I haven't been checking the effects of those yet.

My concern is the increase in weakly hit balls, versus the high-fly power shots and the fact there's this sudden drop in hit variety when lowering Contact ratings. What I did to fix that is raise the AI Contact up to 95 and drop AI Skill to 50. I tried that for a bit and I did see less bloop grounders.

Unlike Rick (the eternal slider optimist :-) I don't think this game can be saved with sliders. The actual programming seems messed up -- too much Power assigned to the higher Contact ratings, for example. This is similar to but different than NFL 2K5. That game was ratched out of the box, with some serious programming imbalances that could be half-rescued with sliders @ 0 plus ratings edits. But from what I've seen so far, this game will never play as realistically as NFL 2K5 did even after editing, let alone relying on a slider fix only. A very unfortunate by-prodiuuct of rushing this game onto the market... though I still like the game for some odd reason -- John and Joe have a lot to do with that I think :-)

Anyway, bottom line: if using default rosters, try AI Contact @ 95 or even 100, and lower the AI Skill slider until just before the CPU always strikes out (30-40?) That might get rid of some of the dribblers at least.

Baa,

I don't want to use default rosters. Would you recommend my changing the contact-2b-3b-Hr edits that you mentioned to 65-45-35-30 for everyone and use it with the sliders. Let me know what you think will work best for me.

Thanks
Jeff

[therizing02]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

[QUOTE=Rickster101]I'm not too much worried about the games play and the sliders its only a matter of time before a truly solid set comes about if one isn't out there already that should be no problem.

What has me pissed at times with the game is these terrible cameras it just pisses me off and I guess you could say it all but kills things for me well not actually kills but more so frustrates me to the point I find it very lacking in some aspects on that point other then that I do love the views but feel more could have been done to present a view more like the "Broadcast" cameras in MVP.

Bottom line the cameras should have included that broadcast camera which is sorley missing IMO the other items mentioned here can be fixed and worked on as they always are but not having a decent broadcast camera is almost unforgiveble...just my opinion as far as whats "killing" it for me.(more like frustrates not killing)

I completely agree with the camera argument. They are absolutley pathetic. I'd like to know which genius decided that "hey that looks really good."

One thing that helps alot with that is to set your video option in the XBOX settings (if you have XBOX) to widescreen. Almost a completely different game.

On another note the thing that just pi$$es me off more than anything are the pop fly throws. WTF?!?! I had the CPU hit one in the rc gap the other night so I threw to the cut off. He catches the ball in short rf and I turn and try to fire home but the ball goes straight up in the air and drops straight down. WTF?! Or when batters are beating out routine ground balls to the left side of the infield because of the pop fly throws to first. Again, what genius at VC, Kush, T2, whatever decided 'that's ok, that looks really authentic." Idiots.

[therizing02]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

[QUOTE=Rickster101]I'm not too much worried about the games play and the sliders its only a matter of time before a truly solid set comes about if one isn't out there already that should be no problem.

What has me pissed at times with the game is these terrible cameras it just pisses me off and I guess you could say it all but kills things for me well not actually kills but more so frustrates me to the point I find it very lacking in some aspects on that point other then that I do love the views but feel more could have been done to present a view more like the "Broadcast" cameras in MVP.

Bottom line the cameras should have included that broadcast camera which is sorley missing IMO the other items mentioned here can be fixed and worked on as they always are but not having a decent broadcast camera is almost unforgiveble...just my opinion as far as whats "killing" it for me.(more like frustrates not killing)

I completely agree with the camera argument. They are absolutley pathetic. I'd like to know which genius decided that "hey that looks really good."

One thing that helps alot with that is to set your video option in the XBOX settings (if you have XBOX) to widescreen. Almost a completely different game.

On another note the thing that just pi$$es me off more than anything are the pop fly throws. WTF?!?! I had the CPU hit one in the rc gap the other night so I threw to the cut off. He catches the ball in short rf and I turn and try to fire home but the ball goes straight up in the air and drops straight down. WTF?! Or when batters are beating out routine ground balls to the left side of the infield because of the pop fly throws to first. Again, what genius at VC, Kush, T2, whatever decided 'that's ok, that looks really authentic." Idiots.

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Baa,

I don't want to use default rosters. Would you recommend my changing the contact-2b-3b-Hr edits that you mentioned to 65-45-35-30 for everyone and use it with the sliders. Let me know what you think will work best for me.

Thanks
Jeff

Jeff -- I'm trying to come up several different default ratings "batting templates", depending on the type of hitter. Right now I've got my sliders @ AI Skill 50-60 (still fiddling with that), AI Contact 80 and AI Power 40.

A lower-average, light-hitting groundball hitter might look something like 70-15-10-10. A lower-average, groundball hitter that hits a few HR's (a lot of C's?) might look something like 65-25-10-60.

A generic high-average hitter would be 80-30-25-10 or whatever. By adding higher 2B and 3B numbers, this guy will have more AB's where the ball is lofted out of the infield -- balls in the corners and gaps -- raising the possiblity of it falling in for a hit. So it's more than just assigning lower versus higher Contact/Average numbers from what I've seen.

A lower-average power hitter might be 60-55-25-45 etc. The thing is, higher Contact/Average ratings add more power as well. So a higher-average power hitter doesn't necessarily need a big jump in his 2B, 3B and HR ratings. Simply by raising his Contact/Average rating, he's going to hit more power shots and HR's. So maybe 75-65-35-55 for him, or whatever... depends on the player. If he also hits more HR's than usual, bump his HR rating 20-30 instead of just 10. But if you stick an 85-90 Contact/Average rating on top of all those high power numbers, well... draft him immediately :-)

It's really about how the Contact versus Power ratings interact with each other -- again from what I've seen so far. And all of this is definitely in the experimental stage ;-)

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Baa,

I don't want to use default rosters. Would you recommend my changing the contact-2b-3b-Hr edits that you mentioned to 65-45-35-30 for everyone and use it with the sliders. Let me know what you think will work best for me.

Thanks
Jeff

Jeff -- I'm trying to come up several different default ratings "batting templates", depending on the type of hitter. Right now I've got my sliders @ AI Skill 50-60 (still fiddling with that), AI Contact 80 and AI Power 40.

A lower-average, light-hitting groundball hitter might look something like 70-15-10-10. A lower-average, groundball hitter that hits a few HR's (a lot of C's?) might look something like 65-25-10-60.

A generic high-average hitter would be 80-30-25-10 or whatever. By adding higher 2B and 3B numbers, this guy will have more AB's where the ball is lofted out of the infield -- balls in the corners and gaps -- raising the possiblity of it falling in for a hit. So it's more than just assigning lower versus higher Contact/Average numbers from what I've seen.

A lower-average power hitter might be 60-55-25-45 etc. The thing is, higher Contact/Average ratings add more power as well. So a higher-average power hitter doesn't necessarily need a big jump in his 2B, 3B and HR ratings. Simply by raising his Contact/Average rating, he's going to hit more power shots and HR's. So maybe 75-65-35-55 for him, or whatever... depends on the player. If he also hits more HR's than usual, bump his HR rating 20-30 instead of just 10. But if you stick an 85-90 Contact/Average rating on top of all those high power numbers, well... draft him immediately :-)

It's really about how the Contact versus Power ratings interact with each other -- again from what I've seen so far. And all of this is definitely in the experimental stage ;-)

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Jeff - These are my current settings, along with my test team's lineup and their batting ratings (Avg/2B/3B/HR):

User sliders: Contact 30; Power 50
CPU sliders: Skill 60; Contact 80; Power 50

Rivera RF - 80 15 25 10
Reyes 2B - 75 30 25 25
Ramirez 3B - 85 35 15 40
Rowand CF - 65 40 25 55
Wooten 1B - 70 35 15 25
Monroe LF - 65 40 25 35
Wilson C - 55 50 15 65
Santiago SS - 60 25 40 20

These are working out pretty good for me. Why not set up a test roster and play a few games -- this team versus itself. I generally pitch to the CPU for a couple of innings and then do some human hitting, just to make sure the settings work for both CPU and User. The CPU will sub in players, so you can make the rest of the batters in your lineup useless so it won't do that.

What you'll notice are very few bloop hits, as most groundballs are hard hit. Lots of fly balls to the OF instead of auto-homeruns. Also, a variety of decent fouls that you'll actually have a chance go after, whereas most of the fouls with the default roster are those cannon blasts to the foul poles.

Also note: I've lowered all P's fielding ratings to 10 and below. Plus, most of my infielders have lowered fielding ratings, in particular Arm Strength. IMO, an average arm should probably be in the 30 range, a great arm maybe 75. Any higher and I feel it's unrealistic (this doesn't apply to C's). I'm mentioning this because these settings and ratings increase the number of groundballs, and so I'm trying to do something about the vacuum fielders in this game.

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

Jeff - These are my current settings, along with my test team's lineup and their batting ratings (Avg/2B/3B/HR):

User sliders: Contact 30; Power 50
CPU sliders: Skill 60; Contact 80; Power 50

Rivera RF - 80 15 25 10
Reyes 2B - 75 30 25 25
Ramirez 3B - 85 35 15 40
Rowand CF - 65 40 25 55
Wooten 1B - 70 35 15 25
Monroe LF - 65 40 25 35
Wilson C - 55 50 15 65
Santiago SS - 60 25 40 20

These are working out pretty good for me. Why not set up a test roster and play a few games -- this team versus itself. I generally pitch to the CPU for a couple of innings and then do some human hitting, just to make sure the settings work for both CPU and User. The CPU will sub in players, so you can make the rest of the batters in your lineup useless so it won't do that.

What you'll notice are very few bloop hits, as most groundballs are hard hit. Lots of fly balls to the OF instead of auto-homeruns. Also, a variety of decent fouls that you'll actually have a chance go after, whereas most of the fouls with the default roster are those cannon blasts to the foul poles.

Also note: I've lowered all P's fielding ratings to 10 and below. Plus, most of my infielders have lowered fielding ratings, in particular Arm Strength. IMO, an average arm should probably be in the 30 range, a great arm maybe 75. Any higher and I feel it's unrealistic (this doesn't apply to C's). I'm mentioning this because these settings and ratings increase the number of groundballs, and so I'm trying to do something about the vacuum fielders in this game.

[Radja]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

i am starting to use AI skill at 65, contact 80 and power 50 and the cpu sprays balls all over.

for the human, batter contact 75, power 52. i am still experimenting. my AI pitching is probably different then yours, 100 for corner, change speed and location with 35 for the throw strike sliders.

i need several more games, as i just dropped from 80 human contact 50 power. but for me it is really starting to spray hits.

[Radja]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

i am starting to use AI skill at 65, contact 80 and power 50 and the cpu sprays balls all over.

for the human, batter contact 75, power 52. i am still experimenting. my AI pitching is probably different then yours, 100 for corner, change speed and location with 35 for the throw strike sliders.

i need several more games, as i just dropped from 80 human contact 50 power. but for me it is really starting to spray hits.

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

for the human, batter contact 75, power 52. i am still experimenting. my AI pitching is probably different then yours, 100 for corner, change speed and location with 35 for the throw strike sliders.

That's right... The reason I have User Contact so low is I have my CPU P throwing mostly strikes without much change in location. I do that when I'm testing hitting so that I'm not whiffing all day long ;-)

[baa7]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

for the human, batter contact 75, power 52. i am still experimenting. my AI pitching is probably different then yours, 100 for corner, change speed and location with 35 for the throw strike sliders.

That's right... The reason I have User Contact so low is I have my CPU P throwing mostly strikes without much change in location. I do that when I'm testing hitting so that I'm not whiffing all day long ;-)

[truckie16]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

I've gotten rid of the dribblers by the CPU by doing as was suggested lowering skill and raising the contact.
As for the dribblers I was hitting they are a thing of past. My contact was way to low before 50-55 now it's at 70-75 and it's much better.
Now if I can solve the HR problem. If I give up 7 hits in a game 3 are HRs. In my last 7 games there have been a total of 30 HRs between me and the CPU. That seems extremely high. In fact when I think about it the CPU hasn't scored a run in those 7 games that wasn't the result of a HR. This is with my power at 40 and the CPUs at 35. I would say it was bad pitching if they were also getting a ton of hits to go with the homers but they're not. On average I probabley give anywhere between 5-8 hits a game.

The hit variety that I mentioned before is still not very good. I just think this game has bad ball physics. The ball kind of plops off the bat instead of poping like it should, which is why I believe there are so many soft linedrives to the infield by human and CPU. I'll keep playing with the sliders to lower the HR totals.
Even weith the lack of hit variety I still like thisd game a lot. It holds great potential for next season.

[truckie16]

Re: One thing that is killing this game for me!

I've gotten rid of the dribblers by the CPU by doing as was suggested lowering skill and raising the contact.
As for the dribblers I was hitting they are a thing of past. My contact was way to low before 50-55 now it's at 70-75 and it's much better.
Now if I can solve the HR problem. If I give up 7 hits in a game 3 are HRs. In my last 7 games there have been a total of 30 HRs between me and the CPU. That seems extremely high. In fact when I think about it the CPU hasn't scored a run in those 7 games that wasn't the result of a HR. This is with my power at 40 and the CPUs at 35. I would say it was bad pitching if they were also getting a ton of hits to go with the homers but they're not. On average I probabley give anywhere between 5-8 hits a game.

The hit variety that I mentioned before is still not very good. I just think this game has bad ball physics. The ball kind of plops off the bat instead of poping like it should, which is why I believe there are so many soft linedrives to the infield by human and CPU. I'll keep playing with the sliders to lower the HR totals.
Even weith the lack of hit variety I still like thisd game a lot. It holds great potential for next season.