RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

[NewNapkin]

Hello everyone!

So there is one thing that either no one cares about or knows about in RTTS that really just confuses me. Apparently, in MLB '13, difficulty setting was altered to one setting lower in AA, the selected setting in AAA, and one setting higher in the big leagues. This was confirmed by nomo17k after bcruise did some testing:

In short, it looks like the difficulty level you specify in your own setting is applied at the AAA level, and at the AA and MLB levels, you will be playing at one level lower or higher than what you specify. (The change is made internally, so you cannot see it reflected in the setting you see.)

For example, if your setting is HoF, you'll be playing at All-star at AA and Legend at MLB level. If your setting is All-star, you'll be playing on Veteran at AA, HoF at MLB, so on and so forth. (If the level go above or below what is allowed in the game, the difficulty level stays within the range.... e.g., if your setting is already Legend, you'll be playing HoF down in AA but are still Legend in MLB.)

This was back in MLB '13, and there has been no one to confirm that this is still true.

Has anyone done further testing in '14, or can any dev give some information? I feel like I should be able to use my sliders from franchise and let the talent on the minor league rosters show the difference in gameplay.

[aukevin]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

I'm pretty sure the difficulty increases in the postseason as well.

[bcruise]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Hello everyone!

So there is one thing that either no one cares about or knows about in RTTS that really just confuses me. Apparently, in MLB '13, difficulty setting was altered to one setting lower in AA, the selected setting in AAA, and one setting higher in the big leagues. This was confirmed by nomo17k after bcruise did some testing:




This was back in MLB '13, and there has been no one to confirm that this is still true.

Has anyone done further testing in '14, or can any dev give some information? I feel like I should be able to use my sliders from franchise and let the talent on the minor league rosters show the difference in gameplay.

Nice to know someone's still interested in this...lol.

I don't believe it's ever been officially confirmed by a dev, but this actually became even easier to prove in '14 with Player Lock.

If you still own the game, try this: Go into an exhibition game on any hitting difficulty level other than Dynamic or Legend. Choose Zone hitting and make sure the Plate Coverage Indicator is on ( i use reticle as it's the one I'm most used to judging its size). When your first hitter steps up to the plate, screenshot with the share button. Then, with the same hitter still up pause and go into the subs screen to turn player lock on for that player (highlight player, press R2 and accept the confirmation. Unpause and screenshot.

If you didn't notice immediately you should after comparing the screenshots - the PCI should have shrunk for the Player Lock shot.

Here's an example on All-Star difficulty (I realize there's not a lot of context in these pics, but this is REALLY easy for anyone to take 5 minutes and see on their own game):

Normal Exhibition



Player Lock



So why does that happen? I believe it's the same effect used in RTTS, seeing as Player Lock and RTTS both function basically the same while in-game. And the effect is that of the difficulty getting bumped up a level for a player playing in an MLB game. I even tried AA and AAA exhibition games in player lock, and the pattern holds true - larger PCI for AA and "normal" PCI for AAA.

Notice I said not to try this little test on Dynamic - that's because switching between player lock and normal has no effect. And if you apply the same logic to RTTS, it means that with Dynamic difficulty you can have an RTTS that is completely unaffected by this internal difficulty shift. That was great last year, but it's even better for '15 ASSUMING everything will still work the same - we have the ability to "lock in" a Dynamic Difficulty setting now with a slider. That means that once you find a setting that's good for you, you no longer have to worry about difficulty moving up or down AT ALL, and you can be confident that your results are purely based on skill!

I have no idea about playoffs...the reason I'm able to be so sure about the RTTS/Player Lock thing is that it's a closed environment - same pitcher, same hitter, same game conditions. Back when I tested this in '13 I took great pains to be able to create the same situation inside and out of RTTS - meaning I edited a pitcher's and hitter's ratings to be identical to that of which I had in an RTTS game. Seeing the same thing happen in Player Lock mode, where there is no doubt that the game situation is the same, corroborates that test IMO.

[ktachanok]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

yes,you can be confident that your results are purely based on skill

[nomo17k]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Hello everyone!

So there is one thing that either no one cares about or knows about in RTTS that really just confuses me. Apparently, in MLB '13, difficulty setting was altered to one setting lower in AA, the selected setting in AAA, and one setting higher in the big leagues. This was confirmed by nomo17k after bcruise did some testing:




This was back in MLB '13, and there has been no one to confirm that this is still true.

Has anyone done further testing in '14, or can any dev give some information? I feel like I should be able to use my sliders from franchise and let the talent on the minor league rosters show the difference in gameplay.

I think this was not just in MLB 13 but has always been the case (at least since MLB 10... when I started playing).... just that it was first explained in detail in the Strategy Guide since that iteration and became obvious.

I've heard this was done to make us feel more pronounced the difference between all the levels. Without changing the difficulty I think some felt that the differences among AA, AAA, and MLB weren't felt strongly.

After learning this, I adjust my difficulty level through different levels, because I love struggling down in minor to prolong my journey to The Show.... besides minor league stadiums are fun.


bruise's test above is interesting, but I actually am not sure the difficulty level change is intended for the player-lock mode? It does make sense things are similar between RTTS and player-lock, but is that part intentional or a bug? Not sure.

No wonder I sucked doing player-lock Josh Donaldson season thinking I was actually plaing HoF!! I unusually sucked and didn't understand why so I might have been playing on Legend unknowingly.

Anyways, very nice find again.

[NewNapkin]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Great stuff bcruise!

Sad to see that this has been around for a while and still is around, for me at least. I don't like changing the difficulty to counter this, because it doesn't feel right and I feel bad for knocking down the difficulty when I make it to the majors.

When I'm like the worst player at that position in my organization, I want to struggle, and have my poor ratings make that happen while using realistic sliders.

[Dolenz]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Could it be possible that the size of the reticule is affected by the skill of the pitcher you are facing? Which would also mean that facing Kershaw gives you less room for error than facing a #5 pitcher?

That to me would make more sense than sneakily adjusting the difficulty as the player progresses.

[nomo17k]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Could it be possible that the size of the reticule is affected by the skill of the pitcher you are facing? Which would also mean that facing Kershaw gives you less room for error than facing a #5 pitcher?

That to me would make more sense than sneakily adjusting the difficulty as the player progresses.

This has always been the case, regardless of difficulty settings.

[bcruise]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Could it be possible that the size of the reticule is affected by the skill of the pitcher you are facing? Which would also mean that facing Kershaw gives you less room for error than facing a #5 pitcher?

That to me would make more sense than sneakily adjusting the difficulty as the player progresses.

It absolutely does. That's why, when I tested this in RTTS in '13, I had to create 2 players OUTSIDE of RTTS, a pitcher and a hitter, and edit them to the exact ratings of my RTTS hitter and the pitcher he was scheduled to face. The PCI's should have been the same size, but they weren't - the RTTS reticle was always larger. That's because the difficulty gets adjusted down in RTTS when you're in AA.

Anyway, as Nomo alluded to (and I forgot), this actually has been confirmed by the dev team. The in-game strategy guide states the following in its other - misc section:

"RTTS shifts hitting and pitching difficulties by 1 level when transitioning between the AA, AAA, and MLB leagues (capped between Rookie and Legend). This rule doesn't directly change your difficulty setting but acts as a modifier to it. Beginner and Dynamic difficulty are unaffected by this rule."

[nemesis04]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

"RTTS shifts hitting and pitching difficulties by 1 level when transitioning between the AA, AAA, and MLB leagues (capped between Rookie and Legend). This rule doesn't directly change your difficulty setting but acts as a modifier to it. Beginner and Dynamic difficulty are unaffected by this rule."

I know it is not affected with dynamic difficulty but is the modifier the next full difficulty level or is it at the plus level of the difficulty level you are currently playing on?

[bcruise]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

I know it is not affected with dynamic difficulty but is the modifier the next full difficulty level or is it at the plus level of the difficulty level you are currently playing on?

Good question, one that I can't answer with any certainty since we don't have direct access to the + levels. If I had to guess though, I'd say it's probably just steps up and down the normal levels since the + stuff didn't even exist until last year (it was introduced as a part of Dynamic Difficulty) and RTTS has been around for much longer than that. I'm guessing we probably won't be able to choose the + levels in this year's game either, although we can at least lock one of them in place now if it suits us.

Nomo's point about whether it's intentional or not in player lock mode is a good one, too. Of course we'd need dev input to answer that one.

[NewNapkin]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

So I have another question regarding this.

As previously stated, this "feature" was implemented to further differentiate the difficulty between levels, right? Was this done for the casual, arcade-style users sake to make the mode more fun? Or is there something else? I don't see any reason from a simulation point of view that this would be necessary to make things more realistic.

[nomo17k]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

So I have another question regarding this.

As previously stated, this "feature" was implemented to further differentiate the difficulty between levels, right? Was this done for the casual, arcade-style users sake to make the mode more fun? Or is there something else? I don't see any reason from a simulation point of view that this would be necessary to make things more realistic.

I was not speaking on behalf the devs, so who knows what the concensus was, but I don't think it is fair or even accurate to describe the implementation as targeting the "casuals" or "arcade-style" users as if that's a bad thing... it's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it's now very well documented and those who desire different settings can still choose them for the most part.

As much as I like The Show because of its pursuit on authentic simulation baseball experience, there's always a need for balancing various elements... being a consumer-oriented game, it needs to be fun and appeal to a sufficiently large customer base. I would not be critical of the devs for catering to those users on one side, so long as they also keep entertaining us on the other side of spectrum.

I only discussed the issue with one of the devs, so I don't know what the consensus or real intention was, but if I were to summarize I think things are set up that way in RTTS because if the difficulty level doesn't change, the level of challenge you feel at different level does not vary as much... because as you go up the ladder, your player's attributes become higher, so effectively you are always facing the opponents who are on par in terms of rating scale. That might actually make it hard to *feel* how your player is growing stronger in a mode like RTTS.

In any case, I don't think it's a big issue in RTTS... since I learned about it I simply adjust my difficulty level to stay constant as I switch between AA, AAA, and MLB.

[cardinalbird5]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

Good question, one that I can't answer with any certainty since we don't have direct access to the + levels. If I had to guess though, I'd say it's probably just steps up and down the normal levels since the + stuff didn't even exist until last year (it was introduced as a part of Dynamic Difficulty) and RTTS has been around for much longer than that. I'm guessing we probably won't be able to choose the + levels in this year's game either, although we can at least lock one of them in place now if it suits us.

Nomo's point about whether it's intentional or not in player lock mode is a good one, too. Of course we'd need dev input to answer that one.

I can't say for certain either, but I would bet that there is no "+" when dynamic difficulty is off. I've hit on Legend for RTTS and when I switch to HOF my PCI is still the same size. Obviously, I can't go any higher than Legend so it stays at Legend when I have it on that difficulty and when it is on HOF it bumps up to Legend as well.

For pitching I put my difficulty on AS for RTTS as it bumps it up to HOF. When I have accidentally left it on HOF I would get crushed even with a 90 overall pitcher. So I am assuming I was pitching on Legend.

Again...can't say for sure but my money is that there is no "+" if you are not using Dynamic difficulty. Someone could easily prove this with taking a snapshot of their PCI with the same hitter vs pitcher and putting it on HOF and compare it to Legend.

[NewNapkin]

Re: RTTS Difficulty Setting Confusion

I was not speaking on behalf the devs, so who knows what the concensus was, but I don't think it is fair or even accurate to describe the implementation as targeting the "casuals" or "arcade-style" users as if that's a bad thing... it's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it's now very well documented and those who desire different settings can still choose them for the most part.

As much as I like The Show because of its pursuit on authentic simulation baseball experience, there's always a need for balancing various elements... being a consumer-oriented game, it needs to be fun and appeal to a sufficiently large customer base. I would not be critical of the devs for catering to those users on one side, so long as they also keep entertaining us on the other side of spectrum.

I only discussed the issue with one of the devs, so I don't know what the consensus or real intention was, but if I were to summarize I think things are set up that way in RTTS because if the difficulty level doesn't change, the level of challenge you feel at different level does not vary as much... because as you go up the ladder, your player's attributes become higher, so effectively you are always facing the opponents who are on par in terms of rating scale. That might actually make it hard to *feel* how your player is growing stronger in a mode like RTTS.

In any case, I don't think it's a big issue in RTTS... since I learned about it I simply adjust my difficulty level to stay constant as I switch between AA, AAA, and MLB.

Oh definitely, I completely understand them doing things like this to appeal to a broader market, and everything you said makes since. I was just trying to get more information out of this topic, since most people don't even know about it.