This game feels so scripted at times

[bcruise]

Quote: Originally Posted by extremeskins04

One time I pitched to a guy and he fouled it 12 times before I finally said hell with it and just walked him on purpose. I got tired of it. He was DETERMINED to get a hit or walk.

Admittedly, this is the part about the higher difficulties that bothers me too - it happens because the hitter's PCI gets very large on HOF and Legend, and it happens all throughout the game and is not limited to late innings, although bad reliever ratings (HitsPer9) can magnify it even more. But I could ask you if you should have been able to throw 12 straight strikes for the batter to foul off? Would you have felt cheated just the same if you missed the zone with the 3rd or 4th pitch instead of the 12th? Do you just automatically feel you should win that battle just because you were able to throw that many strikes in a row?

I totally agree that those types of deadlocks happen more often than they should on the upper levels, but eventually one side or the other has to give. Either the pitcher misses, or the batter puts it in play/strikes out.

[roolz]

Im 6-18 in my Mets 'chise... thats right, a ropey 6-18 using Bulks sliders (thanks bud )

Anyway I look at my losses and what do I notice... and what dont I learn from... pitching a dead horse! I always go that one out to many with my starter and think yeah just work another and that will do me... bang, he gets tired, my pen isnt ready and im watching batters run around the diamond

So yeah I agree comebacks are there, but could I have prevented... hell yeah and did I deserve to get comeback on... of course because I mis-managed the ball game.

To me, Baseball games and the Show in particular cant have money plays or moments, as every at bat is its own set piece in a big picture... its not like Madden throwing the same pass to get your 10 yards, or NHL and cutting infront of the net with a spinarama to get your goals...

You can read my franchise here on the ShowNation boards if you like http://forums.theshownation.com/showthread.php?t=26652

[extremeskins04]

Quote: Originally Posted by P.A.D.

Personally, I've always been a firm believer that there is some type of logic built into this game to make games closer, but because the developers stated there wasn't, the masses would have you believe that what they say is law. My questions are this: - If the masses have stated many times that they DO NOT want rubber banding built in and it was, would ANY dev in their right mind admit to it, knowing this could cost them sales? - If the masses have repeatedly stated they want a competitive and realistic game and the only way to accomplish this would be to build in rubber banding logic, then why wouldn't they? Now with these points made, do I think there is actual rubber banding maliciously built in to the code? No. What I do think is that the developers coded it in such a way that the CPU "buckles down" in the late innings in order to get back in the game so that if you make ANY mistake, they will burn you for it. And I think in order for the CPU to actually "buckle down," certain things have to happen (squeezed and inconsistent strike zones, seeing-eye singles, fighting off tough pitches, etc.) to replicate that action. So do I think it's rubber banding? No. Do I think it's "tougher" AI in later innings? Yes. That's why the devs say there is no rubber banding. It's not rubber banding per se, it's just a livened up AI coupled with inconsistent strike zones, relievers being worse than starters, confidence being poorly coded, and user error. EDIT: It should be noted that I ONLY believe this type of logic is built in on the higher levels. I played AllStar level and it's a cake walk. I've never seen a HINT of it on AllStar or lower, but on HoF and higher, it manifests itself clearly in my opinion.

I play on All-Star with Classic Pitching and I've seen mediocre CPU hitters in the 8th inning foul off about 10-12 pitches before he belted one to the parking lot. Ball was pitched inside but out of the strike zone. (you know that area where it's supposed to jam hitters)....Nope ..he crushed it. It was against one of the better relievers (Robertson) and I don't remember the guy batting. He had low to mid 70's contact with 50's power.

I've actually tested this. I purposely drafted Craig Kimbrel and had him close a game that I was winning by 5 runs. He faced 4 hitters in the mid to late 70's that smoked him in the 9th inning.

Sorry but that's ridiculous.

[allstardad]

Quote: Originally Posted by extremeskins04

I play on All-Star with Classic Pitching and I've seen mediocre CPU hitters in the 8th inning foul off about 10-12 pitches before he belted one to the parking lot. Ball was pitched inside but out of the strike zone. (you know that area where it's supposed to jam hitters)....Nope ..he crushed it. It was against one of the better relievers (Robertson) and I don't remember the guy batting. He had low to mid 70's contact with 50's power. I've actually tested this. I purposely drafted Craig Kimbrel and had him close a game that I was winning by 5 runs. He faced 4 hitters in the mid to late 70's that smoked him in the 9th inning. Sorry but that's ridiculous.

Do you throw the same sequence of pitches to batters?

[HustlinOwl]

Setup community challenges and let us have at it and see the different results you get. Whats even great you can setup the Pitchers energy and confidence to boot.

[spitoon]

I'm not a conspiracy theory type of guy, so I don't think it exists at all.

Last night I struggled all game long and scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th for a walk off win that I had no right getting. If the CPU could talk, I'm sure it would be complaining about a comeback code...

Look at box scores from a week of real MLB games. There are comebacks, close games, blowouts. Cleveland (a sub .500 team) scored 11 runs in the final 3 innings to blow out the Blue Jays 15-4 last night.

It happens.

[Heroesandvillains]

P.A.D, here's some light reading for you from the lead AI programmer:

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian SCEA

The CPU's hitting has no relation to your hitting. It does have relation to your pitching, which if anything is what could be changing. Isn't it a more likely explanation that that the better you hit, the better you are allowing the CPU to hit? Some people don't play as hard when they're winning. In fact, that's more true in a video game than real MLB baseball, not less. An experiment needs to eliminate this bias.

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian SCEA

I'm only clarifying the fact that there is no hidden comeback code in the game. It's an objective question, and there isn't any. I don't have any problem with anything you've said, I just wanted to clear that myth up! If you're not pitching well with Mariano Rivera, it's because you're not pitching well with Mariano Rivera. If you pitched better with Rivera in previous games, it means you pitched better with Rivera in previous games. We could start a new discussion about that instead. There's probably an explanation and it might be hard to figure out, but I can easily say it is not comeback code. If comeback code was why you kept losing games with Rivera, nobody else would be able to close with Rivera or any other closer. Blown saves is like RBIs in that your teammates have a lot of say in what you get, it's a record of achievement and but a weak statistical measure. This is the same reason why a 2.50 ERA legendary starter can have a 11-10 record more than halfway into the season. This kind of real life inconsistency isn't because of a jinx. For Rivera being on the Yankees also helps his blown saves stat in real life, but not if in the game you're not getting real life Yankee offense.

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian SCEA

On this board there are threads of people talking about how close they got to a no hitter. Compared to that, the three blown leads you described are a much more common streak and should actually happen several times a season for many teams. The game would be broken if this didn't come up. If we're talking long streaks, if it's not one team in real life it's going to be another. Periodically, you can easily have multiple teams with losing streaks even with no teams having a winning streak. And vice versa. I wouldn't put too much into what happens in one week. By definition, another person may see the very opposite steak in a few games, and even more people will repeatedly see both. I've played thousands of games and have seen a simple streak like this repeatedly, as well as the exact opposite. In a twist of irony, preventing these natural streaks from happening would be the very nature of comeback code! Based on these 3 games and your experience, do you feel that if you played 3 or even 6 more games the same blown leads would continue happening repeatedly? Do you feel you can't get blowouts because of a flaw in the game, and that blowout streaks aren't possible? How about for other people? I don't get a sense that you think there's necessarily comeback code, and these examples are easy to test. Real life teams have lost a dozen games more under less likely and far more ironic circumstances. What matters is all the thousands of other games we'd have to ignore to see this. No newspaper is going to print the thousands of non-streaks that happened, and no one's going to discuss it. Regarding streaks, several great teams have even failed to win championships for decades, and in real life they will even blame ghosts. Assuming ghosts and their red shirt cousins aren't really responsible, people would still invent them anyways! This answers your question on imagination and why so many people have these theories. If they didn't, this wouldn't be baseball. It wouldn't be fun. Millions of people have referenced specific curses and ghosts in books, articles, and tv for decades. That's more than the number of posts ever made to this board. So is this because of the strong influence ghosts have on baseball, or rather the importance of imagination and color in baseball? For anyone reading this, if you're convinced there is definitely hidden comeback code or don't want to hear about whether or not it literally exists, please stop reading right here. Baseball is about statistical mysteries, and there's no need to spoil that. For those of you still reading, the answer is there is no such hidden comeback code. This is a simple matter of fact, because it either exists or it doesn't. It's one thing to run scientific tests on a chest to determine what's inside, it's another to open it up and look. Both methods when done correctly yield the same result - there is no hidden comeback code. Some people want to know this, and those are the only people I'm writing this for so please don't take offense at having an answer. I don't want to spoil the mystery for anyone else, but on the other hand there's been some confusion for those want to know. I apologize if you read this by skipping the warning two paragraphs ago, I'm only trying to give an answer for a few people asking. We all know there's always going to be threads on streaks in baseball. After all, the most unlikely thing in baseball is for nothing unlikely to happen!

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian SCEA

The short answer is no, so something else is happening. It's worth noting this actually happens in real life - it's called relievers. Fatigue affects pitcher control and movement very gradually, but it adds up if you keep a pitcher in too long. But even near the end of a pitcher's start he can make up for this by pitching more carefully around batters (on average, increasing walks instead of extra base hits). This is a general trend you'll only see over many games, in individual games anything can happen at any time. That said, a tired Ace is on average much better than a fresh reliever. But at some point that starter is going to lose effectiveness (or complete the game), and a reliever is going to be better. Ideally, you replace the starter before he proves this point. Excluding closers, collectively starters pitch much better over 6 innings than relievers do over 1. That's how much better they are overall.

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian SCEA

The game has no comeback code - that would just be obvious after X games played. It would also prevent proper longterm results (ex. score variety). Longterm results are already hard enough to do well with every user being of different skills/style of play, so we're not about to add another layer of issues on top of that. Comeback code can only give you artificial short-term excitement until you realize what's happening. Put another way, out of 100 real games it's trying to force you to play only the 50 most "exciting" ones - with the assumpiton that you're not interested in the other 50 or even the potential of branching into them. You'd never know this difference if you only played a few games, but we focus on longterm replayability. Streaks are primarily statistical, but some natural ones are unavoidable. For example, I simply hit better on some days than others - sleep and vision are the biggest determination of that. I also tend to get better as I practice, and worse as I take long breaks. In-game players have performance streaks but the key ones are visible to the user and are minor compared to fundamentals. You can say the game is too easy, or too hard, too little offense, or too much offense - but it has no comeback code. Brian

[extremeskins04]

Quote: Originally Posted by allstardad

Do you throw the same sequence of pitches to batters?

Of course not. I always mix it up. Locations, speeds, play mind games with hitters, etc. I do very good pitching in the first 7 innings...but in late innings I get smoked probably 1 out of 3 games.