3048 - Curious: Playing out Games

[Erik W.]

Originally Posted by Cork55

It used to be much much worse than it is now. The delay is there because the game has to redraw/update the screen after each batter.

It also has a lot to do with the level of stats you use. High level of detail adds time between pitches/plays because the game is calling up and writing all of those cool situational stats on the webcast screen.

[davesim]

Cork 45 wrote:

If you play using the 1-pitch mode with full PbP turned on, you will always see new pitchers announced. The hitters are always announced as well. I do not think new fielders are announced.

I'm sorry to disagree with Cork55 , but I just played out two games and there were NO announcements of pinch hitters or relief pitchers - they just appeared on the field or at bat. As I said, it would be great if they were indeed announce in the PbP as they were in 6.5 (FO

[Cork55]

Originally Posted by davesim

Cork 45 wrote:

If you play using the 1-pitch mode with full PbP turned on, you will always see new pitchers announced. The hitters are always announced as well. I do not think new fielders are announced.

I'm sorry to disagree with Cork55 , but I just played out two games and there were NO announcements of pinch hitters or relief pitchers - they just appeared on the field or at bat. As I said, it would be great if they were indeed announce in the PbP as they were in 6.5 (FO

Well this is what you should see if you are using full PbP for relief pitchers. I made a pitching change at the start of the 2nd inning in this example. Note the first line of the PbP.

-Cork55

[battists]

Hrm, is there any difference between whether a pitcher is substituted while a team is in the field or at-bat, I wonder?

Sounds like there might be a bug in there somewhere, anyway...

[Cork55]

Originally Posted by battists

Hrm, is there any difference between whether a pitcher is substituted while a team is in the field or at-bat, I wonder?

Sounds like there might be a bug in there somewhere, anyway...

In the same game that I used above, I switched pitchers while my team was a bat. I got the same "Now pitching for..." message at the start of the next inning.

No bug there.

-Cork55

[tysok]

Originally Posted by davesim

Cork 45 wrote:

If you play using the 1-pitch mode with full PbP turned on, you will always see new pitchers announced. The hitters are always announced as well. I do not think new fielders are announced.

I'm sorry to disagree with Cork55 , but I just played out two games and there were NO announcements of pinch hitters or relief pitchers - they just appeared on the field or at bat. As I said, it would be great if they were indeed announce in the PbP as they were in 6.5 (FO

I wonder if this may have anything to do with this...

are you seeing those lines in Cork's printout where it says "here's someone, he's hitting so and so on the year"?

[westendcards]

Here is my opinion. I believe that ootp has so much potential but it is just missing a few of the basic things that would make it a great game. I love DMB and play it all of the time. If DMB had minor leagues then it would be a perfect game for me. I love to play out every game for every team, I am not interested in simming out years, I have interest in having a perfect season played out in "god" mode. OOTP is not up to that challenge in any way. I sometimes feel that OOTP trys to touch on every aspect of real MLB, such as waivers, contract negotiations, etc. but does not master the basic gameplay issues such as great pbp, easy trades, etc. I dont want to have computer managed teams offering me trades or telling me they want my players. I want to control all teams so if I want to make a trade I can make it. I do not want to haggle with someone about their salary, If I want to sign them then I should be able to sign them. When I try to play OOTP I get so frusterated that I end up turning it off after 5 minutes while I can play DMB for hours every day. OOTP is not really fun, it is work to do the things you want to do. Again, the potential is there, but the game has to many frills when the basic game functions need much work.

[DaddyO]

Originally Posted by highandoutside

This is perhaps THE most important issue for me. The problems with OOTP 2006 in this regard are what drove me back to DMB. This years version of OOTP is 100% improved. While not up to DMB level yet, it is the best job OOTP has done to date and it is good enough to keep me playing.

In my opinion there are three issues that could use tweaking and that would improve things substantially. First, the text seems to randomingly speed up and slow down during the presentation of a play. It is a bit annoying and makes the activity of reading the text less enjoyable. Second, the lines of text seem a bit jammed together. DMB is very easy to read along with because there is more space between the lines. Third, there is a small but noticeable delay between the end of the play and the resetting of options. In the best of all worlds, I like to see the text delay for a second and automatically reset itself (ala DMB) without me having to press a botton at the end of every play.

With all that said, I do want to say that PBP is vastly improved and one can get immersed in the actual playing out of games again. Good Job guys!

As a LONG time DMB fan and player, I completely agree with this assessment. If I didn't feel it was a low-class move, I would post on DMB's forum that a new horse has entered the pBp race, and while not yet as good as DMB, it made MAJOR strides and threatens to catch them next year. DMB better get its act in gear, because OOTP2007 is MUCH more playable than 2006 when it comes to playing out games. Having started well behind in the race, Markus is hitting his stride and closing the gap rapidly, while Tom and DMB seem oblivious that their clear lead in their own genre is shrinking to a horse that normally runs in the fictional league genre.

[davesim]

Originally Posted by Cork55

In the same game that I used above, I switched pitchers while my team was a bat. I got the same "Now pitching for..." message at the start of the next inning.

No bug there.

-Cork55

Are you playing out all pitches or playing in one pitch mode? I'm playing in one pitch mode - if you're playing out the pitches perhaps that's why the substitutions are showing up in your PbP and not mine. Of course, they should show up in either mode but am looking for reasons why we're getting different results.

[battists]

Originally Posted by davesim

Are you playing out all pitches or playing in one pitch mode? I'm playing in one pitch mode - if you're playing out the pitches perhaps that's why the substitutions are showing up in your PbP and not mine. Of course, they should show up in either mode but am looking for reasons why we're getting different results.

I'm fairly sure that he said he was in one-pitch mode.

You know, if you'd be up for it, you could help troubleshoot this issue. In Section 33.1 of the manual there are instructions for modifying your configuration to dump PbP to a text file.

If you could do that, it could help us see exactly what you're seeing...

You'd want to change the dump_in_game_commentary_to_file setting to a 1.

[Cork55]

Originally Posted by davesim

Are you playing out all pitches or playing in one pitch mode? I'm playing in one pitch mode - if you're playing out the pitches perhaps that's why the substitutions are showing up in your PbP and not mine. Of course, they should show up in either mode but am looking for reasons why we're getting different results.

I only play out my games in 1-pitch mode with full PbP. See if you are using the short PbP setting.

-Cork55

[tysok]

Originally Posted by davesim

Are you playing out all pitches or playing in one pitch mode? I'm playing in one pitch mode - if you're playing out the pitches perhaps that's why the substitutions are showing up in your PbP and not mine. Of course, they should show up in either mode but am looking for reasons why we're getting different results.

Are you seeing the intro lines like "so and so steps up, he's hitting something on the year with so many home runs etc"? They start showing up after 6 or 7 games or something, and they show up for every player in their first at bat of the game.

I believe there is a bug, it was marked as not able to reproduce, where those lines will not show up and if they don't a whole bunch of lines don't (including possibly the lines we're discussing here)... if you aren't seeing those you're having this problem and I'll reopen the TT#.

[Queensryche]

What happened to the ability to have the game play out without having to press keys to go forward? I want to watch the game unfold without having to click the "enter" key everytime. It's annoying.

[Mike D]

Originally Posted by Queensryche

What happened to the ability to have the game play out without having to press keys to go forward? I want to watch the game unfold without having to click the "enter" key everytime. It's annoying.

What version was that in?

[battists]

Originally Posted by Queensryche

What happened to the ability to have the game play out without having to press keys to go forward? I want to watch the game unfold without having to click the "enter" key everytime. It's annoying.

Queensryche, do this:

1. Start a game

2. On the options screen, select your bench coach to control your team for all of the strategy options (you can't "watch" if you're controlling the strategies)

3. At the top of the page is a checkbox called "Pause after each play", checked by default. Uncheck this.

4. Start the game

The pbp should flow without any interruption. You can re-check the pause after each play button if you'd like to take over to make a change yourself, but honestly, it's a little unresponsive. (Already logged as an issue.)

Hope this helps.

[battists]

Just to be clear, the expectation is that the game will announce new hitters and new pitchers. If it's not, it's definitely a bug, and we should be able to get it fixed!

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally Posted by battists

Just to be clear, the expectation is that the game will announce new hitters and new pitchers. If it's not, it's definitely a bug, and we should be able to get it fixed!

I don't think I've been seeing new players announced. I've been playing in one-pitch mode though, which I'm really glad to see completely back in this version. If you're going to manage a lot of games, one-pitch mode is way better than having to watch every pitch.

I'm much happier with playing out games now. The text commentary is improved over both 6.5 and 2006.

There's some things that could be refined in going to substitution screens and what ratings are displayed by default which could possibly save extra mouse clicks.

[davesim]

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to this, but in my profession Sunday is the big day and I didn't get to OOTP at all.

I've had a little more time today to play out some games and be more observant about player announcements:

1. Relief Pitchers - as someone suggested earlier in the thread, now that I am deep enough into the season that player stats are given as a player comes up to bat, relief pitchers are now being announced. I agree that there seems to be some correlation between the two, as I am almost positive relievers weren't being announced earlier in the season.

2. Pinch Hitters - are not announced as pinch hitters. The text says, "(Name) steps into the box" and then the play is described. It would be most helpful to have a specific announcement that a pinch hitter is up, especially (obviously) with the computer-controlled team

3. Pinch Runners and Fielding Substitutions - I do not believe these are announced, but they have occurred quite infrequently. They definitely were announced in 6.5, and it would be helpful to have them announced in 2007.

Despite this minor issue, I am still very much enjoying playing this game (probably too much)!

[masoo]

Not sure if my own experiences are useful in this thread, but here goes:

I've been playing baseball sims since 1960, and felt (and feel) that Diamond Mind is the culmination of that kind of game. It's simply the best at what it does. I usually play out every game of my fave team (the Giants) and let the AI do the rest.

But ... one day, what was then called Championship Manager entered my life. And that changed everything.

After 30+ years of thinking that playing out games was the ultimate in satisfaction, ChampMan taught me that there was more to sports sim gaming. Oh, playing out the games was still fun, but there was so much more. Since DMB did not, does not, and likely never will have a career mode, it fell to the wayside for me, even though the game is as good as ever.

Meanwhile, here came Clay with Mogul and Shaun with PureSim and, most amazing of all in lots of ways, a guy from Germany named Markus. All of them trying to get to the bottom of a career-mode baseball sim.

I've spent many fun hours with Mogul and PureSim, but it was clear early on that OOTP was going to be the closest to the CM/FM standard that I was looking for, even the earliest versions where the feel wasn't quite right, as if Markus hadn't quite gotten the "baseball feel" yet. For my money, as I've said elsewhere, OOTP 2007 is good enough to be spoken of in the same sentence as FM, and that's progress coming from me.

Reason for saying all of this is that I have never played the games out in OOTP. I have always assumed that OOTP would never be able to equal Diamond Mind in that regard. And I was more interesting in GM gaming than in manager gaming by this point. So the question in this thread doesn't matter much to me. I think DMB is better for playing out games, my opinion is completely uninformed since I don't play out games in OOTP, and despite more than 30 years of playing out games in baseball sims, I don't suppose I'll ever go back to it in any event.

[battists]

Originally Posted by davesim

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to this, but in my profession Sunday is the big day and I didn't get to OOTP at all.

I've had a little more time today to play out some games and be more observant about player announcements:

1. Relief Pitchers - as someone suggested earlier in the thread, now that I am deep enough into the season that player stats are given as a player comes up to bat, relief pitchers are now being announced. I agree that there seems to be some correlation between the two, as I am almost positive relievers weren't being announced earlier in the season.

2. Pinch Hitters - are not announced as pinch hitters. The text says, "(Name) steps into the box" and then the play is described. It would be most helpful to have a specific announcement that a pinch hitter is up, especially (obviously) with the computer-controlled team

3. Pinch Runners and Fielding Substitutions - I do not believe these are announced, but they have occurred quite infrequently. They definitely were announced in 6.5, and it would be helpful to have them announced in 2007.

Despite this minor issue, I am still very much enjoying playing this game (probably too much)!

OK, this has been logged as TT # 3048. We'll see what "the man" can do with it!