Stats-Based CPU Sliders [MLB 14 Version]

[kcsam]

Hey Nomo. Just wanted to say I really like the work you're doing here. Very informative. I also like that your mission here is to create the most sim like environment for the game. That being said, are you still using the sliders you reported a few pages back.

And lastly, have you heard any rumors as to when the first patch will drop? I'm new to the game, so I don't know if there's a usual date it drops each year. Thanks.

[nomo17k]

Quote: Originally Posted by kcsam

Hey Nomo. Just wanted to say I really like the work you're doing here. Very informative. I also like that your mission here is to create the most sim like environment for the game. That being said, are you still using the sliders you reported a few pages back.

It's really not so noble as a mission, but since I like walks, I usually try to adjust sliders so that the game produces a realistic amount of walks at least. The game by default is usually tuned to produce less walks compared to what we expect from the MLB average. The game actually is tuned very well out of the box, so most slider adjustments are of cosmetic nature, in my opinion.

I'm still testing with the same slider labeled 4/11.

This is like the 4th year I am doing this, but I think something drastically changed after MLB 12, and I have not been really able to produce a realistic amount of walks in the game. Before and on MLB 12, all I really needed was to lower Pitcher Consistency, but now I am lowering Pitcher Control and Consistency quite a bit now, but I am not seeing the amount of walks coming up as much as I used to see.

So generating walks has been the most frustrating part, but most other sliders are getting closer to where I would like them to be, I think. I just want to bring up the offense a bit more, and things should be pretty much set.

Quote:

And lastly, have you heard any rumors as to when the first patch will drop? I'm new to the game, so I don't know if there's a usual date it drops each year. Thanks.

I think there usually is at least one patch. The first patch probably drops within a few weeks to month of the release, I believe.

[BrianU]

I like your approach to pitching sliders and not nerfing control into the ground. My only area of contention is the fielding and base running sliders. I know you are still in the stage of sticking to defaults and using defaults as a control to see what needs to be adjusted and I haven't gotten too much playing time in yet, but from my experience the base running speed results in some really funky plays. Non super fast guys beating out grounders that look relatively routine, and choppers too. I know you do not observe every game but curious if you have seen any instances of this. I just have a feeling if we had a statistic stating how many infield grounders made up total hits, we would see a an over-representation from whatever that number is in real life. We are able to track strike ratios on the various counts very closely but hits being only broken down by GB/LD/FB on contact leaves more to be desired in shaping the offensive side of the game.

I appreciate greatly the statistically accurate approach which works well with some sliders, both the speed and reaction sliders I feel need to be looked at from an eye test approach as well. Something I am not the greatest at so I use others sound reasoning. Personally I can see a need to lower fielder reaction to 4, baserunning speed to 3 or 4, arm strength to 3 or lower, and fielder speed a bit. The challenge is finding a balance to reproduce accurate 2B/3B numbers in combination with passing the eye test of the gameplay.

I don't mean to go on a tangent, just curious if you plan to touch those group of sliders at all?

If you don't mind can I ask what made you raise solid hits to 7? I had thought that slider mainly impacted LD% but those numbers looked good on the default testing.

I know you addressed the BB being low still and how you are working on that, but how about strikeouts? Would lowering timing a notch be enough or would that have other unintended effects you wish to avoid?

I always look forward to see what changes you make to balancing things and your approach. Thanks for another year of unparalleled work!

[nomo17k]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

I like your approach to pitching sliders and not nerfing control into the ground. My only area of contention is the fielding and base running sliders. I know you are still in the stage of sticking to defaults and using defaults as a control to see what needs to be adjusted and I haven't gotten too much playing time in yet, but from my experience the base running speed results in some really funky plays. Non super fast guys beating out grounders that look relatively routine, and choppers too. I know you do not observe every game but curious if you have seen any instances of this. I just have a feeling if we had a statistic stating how many infield grounders made up total hits, we would see a an over-representation from whatever that number is in real life. We are able to track strike ratios on the various counts very closely but hits being only broken down by GB/LD/FB on contact leaves more to be desired in shaping the offensive side of the game.

My observation on these plays so far is that I tend to see a lot more bang-bang plays at 1B than I remember before, but many more of them turn into outs than safe. This is just impression and I am not saying from evidence that I can supply. But I feel the reason may be that a few new fielding animations that I often see now physically take more time to make those plays, which in my view is a good thing because they remove the feeling of rush that I think was not really necessary on some plays.

In my opinion, infield hits are an issue that cannot be solved just by tweaking BR Speed, and the real culprit affecting the amount of infield hits is the "poor" hit variety in the game.

As far as I see, prior to MLB 14, most infield hits happened in (1) grounders to the left side of SS where he needs to make a long throw, (2) grounders to the right side of SS where he nonchalantly makes two-step throw, and (3) choppers around the plate fielded by either P or C. I think (1) is fine. The (2) was an animation issue which has been addressed this year by a new animation of SS making a snap throw while running, so it's probably okay. The nagging kind is (3), where a weakly hit chopper stays around the home plate.

I think the game produces a bit too many of (3) as a result of poor contact, when in real life generating that type of hit is very difficult or nearly impossible. The balance of out/safe mostly depends on how fast P/C fields the ball and makes the throw (with varying results in the past). But in real life, choppers tend to bounce a lot harder off the ground, like this:

Spoiler

They often bounce even higher than infielders can reach. A lot of them are actually the reverse of fly balls, just the launch angle is down toward the ground instead of going up in the air. You still don't really see this kind of "poor" hits in the game.

Choppers we see in the game tend to be of very weakly hit variety that stays and nerfed totally around the plate. I think that is the major issue right now, as far as infield hits of the kind you talk about are concerned. And I don't think this is physically realistic, because after all you are hitting a baseball pitch coming at you with a very high velocity and therefore a lot of energy. And that energy needs to go somewhere after a contact is made (i.e., conservation of energy), so if that energy is not in the batted ball, then it will go to either the bat (which sometimes breaks because of this) or the body of the hitter (who might feel sting). (As an aside, this is also why when squaring up with the sweetest spot, the hitter does not really feel much sting in his hands, because the transfer of energy from the bat/body is so smooth that much of it goes to the ball itself.)

So that's my opinion. Rather than fixing through BR speed, the poor hit variety needs to be tweaked in the game.

Quote:

I appreciate greatly the statistically accurate approach which works well with some sliders, both the speed and reaction sliders I feel need to be looked at from an eye test approach as well. Something I am not the greatest at so I use others sound reasoning. Personally I can see a need to lower fielder reaction to 4, baserunning speed to 3 or 4, arm strength to 3 or lower, and fielder speed a bit. The challenge is finding a balance to reproduce accurate 2B/3B numbers in combination with passing the eye test of the gameplay. I don't mean to go on a tangent, just curious if you plan to touch those group of sliders at all?

I actually lowered them for the newest set. I'm just not in a hurry to tweak those sliders till I have enough games played to see if the tweaks are necessary. But in general I think the fielding side of the game has been slowed down further, so I don't think it is as much of an issue as it were in the past.

Quote:

If you don't mind can I ask what made you raise solid hits to 7? I had thought that slider mainly impacted LD% but those numbers looked good on the default testing.

It was a compromise that I made to increase BABIP without affecting a lot of other things, like plate discipline. I almost needed to account for .030 in BABIP which is quite huge, so I assumed increasing line drives is the most effective way of doing this. I would be more inclined to reduce FBs and increase GBs rather than just increasing the proportion on LDs, but you cannot do that with the current set of sliders.

Quote:

I know you addressed the BB being low still and how you are working on that, but how about strikeouts? Would lowering timing a notch be enough or would that have other unintended effects you wish to avoid? I always look forward to see what changes you make to balancing things and your approach. Thanks for another year of unparalleled work!

I'm not really concerned about K% that much. It might be slightly down because of the changes that I have been making, but not outside of the realistic range. If I have to change this, then I will probably try using Foul Frequency slider first. Timing slider might affect solid hits, etc., which might not be desirable.

[toyo301985]

where can i find your sliders in the vault?

[bcruise]

Quote: Originally Posted by toyo301985

where can i find your sliders in the vault?

I doubt Nomo will put anything in the vault until he's got something he's happy with (if he puts anything in there at all). He always takes a large sample size of CPU games and then makes small adjustments based on what he finds out.

[tessl]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian SCEA

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.

That's interesting. I'm wondering if it is possible to revert to last year's animation of that's the problem and if the ps4 has the same animation.

I won't have the game until May 6 but since I'm retired and I play manage mode I probably play - not sim - as many games as anybody in what essentially is cpu vs cpu mode. In mlbts13 I adjusted only one slider - wind. Gameplay was solid.

[ralphieboy11]

Quote: Originally Posted by tessl

That's interesting. I'm wondering if it is possible to revert to last year's animation of that's the problem and if the ps4 has the same animation. I won't have the game until May 6 but since I'm retired and I play manage mode I probably play - not sim - as many games as anybody in what essentially is cpu vs cpu mode. In mlbts13 I adjusted only one slider - wind. Gameplay was solid.

I'm really hoping this gets addressed in a patch. Even when I bump steal ability all the way up and steal frequency all the way down, I still get more people caught stealing that successful stolen bases.