PC Roster

[wudl83]

Quote: Originally Posted by Yeats

You caught me editing my post, lol. I hear you. I'm the same way. I'm still slowly editing my 2K11 roster. I try different player rating edits and make more improvements to the gameplay all the time. I've also been doing that for FIFA 12, I edit 1-2 teams a week and then play games with those teams. Just saying I doubt more than a dozen people on this site would be interested in your project, let alone understand what you're even talking about. Most gamers are only interested in rosters for online gaming, or with correct stances and player gear, etc. They really don't care about a player's power rating vs L&R and how accurate it is or isn't. Just don't kill yourself trying to get something released, that's all

LOL that is ABSOLUTELY the way I think, too.
I also do 1-2 teams at a certain period and play games with them. The last few days I played a Angels-Athletics series because of that.

[Yeats]

Quote: Originally Posted by wudl83

I also do1-2 teams at a certain period and play games with them. The last few days I played a Angels-Athletics series because of that.

I take one gameplay aspect and sometimes work for days trying to find edits that will improve upon it. For example, one of my biggest complaints with this series over the years is that the groundball to fly ball ratio is backwards. In MLB, there are many more groundballs than fly balls per game, but that's the reverse of what you see in 2K baseball. It's a weird thing to me that baseball gamers don't seem to care about details like that. Imagine playing FIFA and watching CPU teams bouncing the ball down the pitch with their heads instead of their feet. It's the same thing with MLB 2K, the gameplay programming is unrealistic and out of whack in many areas.

A couple years back I discovered that raising power and lowering contact helps create groundball hitters. It has to do with the way player ratings interact with the gameplay engine, but it seems the contact rating adds loft to the hit ball. So anyone with high contact will also hit a lot of fly balls and line drives.

In MLB, you see a lot of players with decent power who aren't successful hitters because they've never learned to drive the ball in the air. I'm thinking of a lot catchers for example. What 2K does with these players, is they make them all completely and utterly useless by lowering both their contact and power ratings. So then these players have no value whatsoever, not even as a groundball power hitter who can potentially drive in a run from third with a hard-hit groundball between first and second base. All they can do is hit shallow fly balls or soft line drives that are easily caught.

I’d also like to work on editing and testing groundball ratings for pitchers, something I’ve never had the time to experiment with. There’s no difference in this game between pitchers who throw sinkers and those who don’t. Going up against a sinkerball pitcher means you should be acutely aware that you’re going to be hitting a lot of groundballs unless you spend some serious time pushing up on the L stick during the game. It adds the strategy to the gameplay. As does creating a variety of different types of hitters, as you then have to actually think about your defensive alignments, and shift your D depending on the type of hitter coming to bat.

[wudl83]

I fully agree with your post. When I edit a (current) 25 man roster I touch nearly all of the player ratings. I made a excel sheet and compare the (split) stats of the players to it and then assign ratings. I don't do this in a 100% accurate way, but I use a step system (5, 10 and 15 points) to edit the ratings because otherwise I never would be able to complete anything. 2k hasn't used a very deep system as far as I can tell. Many (split) ratings are simply off. It seems that they mainly looked to assign certain ratings to players hence these players should get a particular OVR.

Regarding my system:
E.g. when a player has a batting average against LHP of 26% in real life this would be a rating of 69 in my excel sheet. Now it depends on what the game has given the player. If he is rated way above this rating (for whatsoever reason), e.g. rated 82 contact vs. LHP, I do not give him exactly 69, I lower the rating by 10 points so that he becomes a 72 contact vs. LHP rated batter. My eyes and fingers react somehow faster with this method, I can't tell ya why. But it seems to be easier to work in those steps than to put in a certain number all the ****ing time.

This system is used for nearly all ratings: contact for pitchers and batters, power or homerun ratings, the eye rating (OBP), and so on. I also edited many pitch types and gave them not only new ratings but also assigned them real life pitch speeds. I did touch the tendencies for both position players and pitchers, too.

IMO it helps the game a lot. Not only that the OVRs aren't messed up (IMO they NOW represent way more a players value than before) like one could think, but also the game plays (at least slightly) different. Now you can't put in a power bat and expect him to hit bombs no matter if he is against a RHP or a LHP. Put in Kendrys Morales against a RHP and he will shine, put him in against a LHP and he will suck. Simply like in reality. That is how I think it should work.

The only problem is that the adjustments need a big amount of time, especially for pitchers and their pitches since you have to switch all the time between the game, the editor and your browser. For editing the current 25 man roster (13 position players and 12 pitchers) of one MLB team it takes me somewhere to between 2 and 3 hours.

For some time past fangraphs.com has become my best friend, I can tell ya. But comparing the real life stats to 2k's ratings makes me wanna scream, really...

For the problem you stated regarding the groundballs I didn't find a proper solution yet, but changing the contact and power ratings and working on the batter's and pitcher's tendencies did help more than a drop.

EDIT:
Ah and I nearly forgot to state this but I think too many people put too much value into OVR ratings. What should matter are the certain fielding stats and the other parameters. But not mainly the OVR. You can easily create players with high OVR by simply giving them a high speed rating an moderate batting ratings. Would such a player in reality be considered as a way above average or even supreme guy? No he wouldn't. he simply would be a decent batter with a bunch of speed. You should have to look deep into the details and decide what you want to do with a player. And not only pick up a guy because he has a good OVR. When you need power against a LHP because your lineup lacks it you should search for a batter that has power against LHP. Searching for a player that only has OVR power shouldn't be enough IMO. As far as I remember 2k stated exactly this in some developer's diaries. But they never implented it in detail.

But I think this a simply an approach that doesn't fit with the mainstream. The most people (and of course they have the very right to!) simply want to start a game and play it. Hit a bunch, throw some Ks. However since I am very deep into baseball and watching way more games lately than previous times this isn't enough for me anymore.

[Yeats]

Quote: Originally Posted by wudl83

For the problem you stated regarding the groundballs I didn't find a proper solution yet, but changing the contact and power ratings and working on the batter's and pitcher's tendencies did help more than a drop.

It's easy to create players who hit groundballs. You have the PC version and Ty's editor, so you can try this editing test, it takes 2 minutes to set up. Globally edit all players' L&R contact to 30, 2B to 50, 3B to 25 and HR to 90. Now play a game, hitting only, and switching teams each half inning. Play on Pro difficulty with contact and power sliders at 50.

What you're going to see when you start hittiing with those edits and settings, is what you see when you watch a real MLB game: hard hit balls, and most of them along the ground. That's the ratings baseline I start with when tweaking hitting ratings in order to create realistic User hitting.

There two problems with this though. First, the player ratings system 2K uses is specifically chosen to ensure that sim stats pan out correctly. They obviously didn't give much thought to User gameplay when they rated these players, it's all about making sure the ratings sync up correctly with the sim engine. Revamping the ratings system will therefore mean the sim stats will be completely fubar.

The second issue is the (sorry, but it's true) arcade swing stick programming. Seriously, someone had to have spent all of 5 minutes testing that one. Because all you have to do in order to hit a fly ball with any player, is push up on the stick. Doesn't matter what the player's ratings are, doesn't matter if he's got a high groundball tendency or not, it's fly ball city every time.

In other words, using classic hitting is probably the only way these edits would make any sense. Otherwise it would be a waste of time, the swing stick programming overrides and kills any gameplay rebalancing one is trying to accomplish via these ratings edits.

[wudl83]

I do not like lowering contact ratings too much. They influence other areas, not only flyballs or grounders. You do not have to lower the contact too much. You can adress it with tendencies and pitcher ratings also. At least a little bit.

I have not played with analog hitting in 2k12. I tested it with 2k11, but classic feels way more realistic.

EDIT:
THe more i sim some test seasons the more I get precarious about the proposition that the ratings mainly influence the sim stats. I think it could be a mixture of past year stats and ratings.

[Yeats]

Quote: Originally Posted by wudl83

You do not have to lower the contact too much.

YOU do not want to lower contact too much. I understand that. But to see a realistic groundball to flyball ratio in 2K baseball, you do in fact have to lower contact ratings.

[wudl83]

Quote: Originally Posted by Yeats

YOU do not want to lower contact too much. I understand that. But to see a realistic groundball to flyball ratio in 2K baseball, you do in fact have to lower contact ratings.

Or lower the slider.

[Yeats]

Quote: Originally Posted by wudl83

Or lower the slider.

Lower what slider? There's no "flyball" slider one can lower. If you're talking about tendency ratings, those affect sim stats and CPU hitters, which is why you're not seeing any difference in the number of groundballs. I'm trying to fix the User gameplay, and ratings like Groundballs, Eye and Strikeouts etc. don't have any affect on User gameplay. It's purely a game engine issue with the User gameplay, and has been with this series since 2K5.