Not enough variety in Play-by-Play

[Art Deco]

Keep seeing the same phrases repeat over and over again in every game I'm playing in 23 like

"(batter) shares a moment of levity with (catcher), now it's all business" - I see that one at least once in every game

"he went high with the meat cleaver there" on a batter taking a swing at the high pitch, seeing that ad nauseum

Playing thousands of games out in 21 & 22, I never noticed repeated phrases like this which are occurring as frequently as they are in 23. Think the randomization needs to be more robust here.

And that's not to mention the recurring issues with the PbP such as the HBP spoiler ("..." before an at-bat) or the wild pitch/passed ball spoiler (a recitation of the count and/or game status).

[Scipio Africanus]

Reminds me of the "hints" (trivia/quotes) that show up in the upper bar when the game is busy. There's something seriously wrong with the randomizer for that. The same 20 or so come up over and over and over again, interrupted occasionally by a more rare one.

[MathBandit]

My guess is OOTP might need to take a page out of Apple's book and go make their "randomizer" significantly less random so that people will think it's actually random.

[pstrickert]

Bug in the system, no doubt. Matt will sort it out.

[Art Deco]

Originally Posted by Art Deco

Keep seeing the same phrases repeat over and over again in every game I'm playing in 23 like

"(batter) shares a moment of levity with (catcher), now it's all business" - I see that one at least once in every game

"he went high with the meat cleaver there" on a batter taking a swing at the high pitch, seeing that ad nauseum

LOL, just playing a game now and had both of those show up in the same at-bat!

[Sabermetric Sociologist]

I've noticed the same thing. The meat cleaver one does make me chuckle though.

[Dave Stieb II]

I use short PBP so I've missed the meat cleaver thing.
But there's definitely a whole lot of joking around going on as I see the levity thing at least twice per game.
I wonder if anyone tried to inject the same levity in the RL Mets/Cards game the other day.

[Syd Thrift]

I know there are more expansive english.xml files out there with more lines of play by play. That said, I think it's one of the side effects of playing a game for hundreds or thousands of hours that any amount of PBP text is going to feel samey after a while. I wind up pushing it into very fast speed, so fast that I really only read the PBP if I'm concentrating on it or I'm watching a replay, and mostly paying attention to the animation on the field (which of course also will get samey given enough time).

I distinctly remember having this issue with the computer APBA game they did with Ernie Harwell back in the day and I'm sure it carries over to pretty much every game with announcers (I also remember getting really peeved at Chris Collinsworth in previous issues of Madden, before Madden become complete trash).

[Art Deco]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I know there are more expansive english.xml files out there with more lines of play by play. That said, I think it's one of the side effects of playing a game for hundreds or thousands of hours that any amount of PBP text is going to feel samey after a while. .

It's not that - I played hundreds/thousands of hours with 21 and 22 and never noticed certain text as ubiquitous as the ones I'm seeing in 23. Something is definitely off with the randomization.

[Primary]

these guys just absolutely love to share moments of levity with each other

[Baileycjj]

Its been very repetitive this year.

Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk

[Dave Stieb II]

Originally Posted by Art Deco

It's not that - I played hundreds/thousands of hours with 21 and 22 and never noticed certain text as ubiquitous as the ones I'm seeing in 23. Something is definitely off with the randomization.

Yup. It is going to get 'samey' when you see it twice every game. Nothing like it over the last six versions and I've played thousands of hours over that time. Don't need to keep sample size stats for this one.

On the other hand, I'm only here to confirm that I have experienced and noticed the same thing - it ranks way down any list of 'fixes' I would create.

[fredbeene]

It baffles me why we can't have an easy way to community source play by play.
I would gladly donate time.
Updating the XML is tedious at best

[Ataraxzy]

Originally Posted by fredbeene

It baffles me why we can't have an easy way to community source play by play.
I would gladly donate time.
Updating the XML is tedious at best

Yes, PLEASE!

At least switch to YAML or something that doesn't involve brackets and pain.

Edit: I'm going to add this to the "Next Version Ideas" board.

[Pelican]

In my 1938 sim I integrated MLB, and one of the first at-bats for Josh Gibson involved - wait for it - him casually sharing a moment of levity with a (white) MLB veteran catcher. It didn't happen that way for Jackie in 1947, and I seriously doubt that Josh would have gotten love to that degree in 1938. Of course the AI is not aware of racial prejudice and color lines being broken. It was just a woeful instance of the repetitive line coming up again.

[Syd Thrift]

I feel like what we really and truly need is an editor for the english.xml. I'm not saying I am going to take on that task but it seems to be the best way to handle that.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by Dave Stieb II

Yup. It is going to get 'samey' when you see it twice every game. Nothing like it over the last six versions and I've played thousands of hours over that time. Don't need to keep sample size stats for this one.

On the other hand, I'm only here to confirm that I have experienced and noticed the same thing - it ranks way down any list of 'fixes' I would create.

This was a database glitch which should be fixed in the next patch. If not, please let me know. Thanks.

[Pelican]

No worries. Not a big deal for me. I gather [coached by data manager wife] that this would be one of the simpler fixes. Appreciate it being addressed. And totally enjoy a thread about sharing moments of levity.

[Sparks8421]

I mean it is a simulation game isn't like other sports games