In the beginning, which for me was OOTP2, Markus designed the game such that park dimensions were cosmetic. You could make a park that's 550' all around, but if you make the HR park factor 1.2 you'd get a bunch of 555' home runs.
There was never any real accommodation for very large parks and the impact they had on inside-the-park homers. In the deadball era, for example. For years I would write an annual post asking Markus to change this.
Here's one. And another. And another. And another. I think I stopped in 2013.
Somewhere along the line Markus did change the code to tie ISTP HR percentages to year. So if you played in 1910 you'd get a lot more of them than if you were in 1975.
Which leads us eventually to
this thread, today. Someone asked about their longest homers. CBeisbol noted that it was easy to get long homers, just make a huge park with a big HR park factor, and you'll get a bunch of really long homers.
I went to go make a screenshot of this, so I made a giant ballpark, 600' to 850' everywhere. HR park factors around 4.000 (which would be like a little league park in Colorado, with MLBers playing), and other high factors. Then played an exhibition to capture a 700' homer.
That's where things got weird. That exhibition is now in the 8th inning, and because of the crazy park effects and the league (a very high offense league to simulate playing in all high altitude parks) it's now 44-40.
And there have been a ton of homers. Like 20 or more.
And as far as I can tell every single one has been inside-the-park. Clearly something in the game has changed with regards to ISTP homers and large parks.
It would be nice if Markus would comment, otherwise I'll have to do some more experiments to make sure it's not just because of some weird setting or the fact it's an exhibition.
As I mentioned in the other thread watching this is strange and hilarious: "Note: It's pretty funny... I'm using a standard 3D model, so it doesn't look gigantic. But I think the fielders motions are being slowed down to compensate. It takes forever to get to a ball up the gap. Then the cutoff man gets the ball as the runner approaches third, and holds the ball a very long time, the runner never stops, and the result is an ISTP homer. The game is now up to like eight or ten ISTPers. I think I also made the BA and triples park effects very high and it's 18-9 in the bottom of the 3rd. "