For the love of God....fix 3D PbP

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

PT brings them a lot of money, and money talks unfortunately and it reflects on where they are spending their time.

And this statement, as I have said many times, is simply false. PT has a dedicated development & marketing team. While I personally jump between teams where the need arises, the development resources for the OOTP core game has increased considerably in the past years, something that would not have been possible without PT.

[Calvert98]

There are so many features in the game currently that could be expanded / made deeper / improved, that I do agree that I would rather see them work on things in the game, than add more stuff (unless that stuff is directly connected to features already in the game).

Anyway, I play-out all of my games as well and 3D has added a lot to that experience. That said, I would really like to see it improved, beyond just wall vanishing and play timing. I think the 3D as a whole needs to take another step forward at this point.

[Calvert98]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Yup, and if PT would not have happened, things like the Ballpark Construction Kit would have never been possible, or the fact that we are hiring a 3D artist to redo all 3D ballparks for OOTP 22.

That is awesome!!! Hopefully the player models will get some work too.

Anyway, great news. Thanks for sharing Markus!

Just had to add, thank you for taking the time to check-in with the community and for listening to the OOTP fans here.

-Cal

[Markus Heinsohn]

But back on topic. 3D is always under development, and in the last few patches we have made good progress in fixing quirks. The next patch will add new animations and will fine-tune existing ones. It's getting better every year, but there is still a lot of work to do of course. And obviously because we have a stats driven engine and not a 3D engine, what you see in 3D is always an interpretation of the calculated play, same as the PbP, so there will be differences. Having a pure 3D engine is not possible and not desired, as a) simulations would slow to a crawl and b) the tens of thousands of lines of PbP text would be obsolete.

So, if you do not like it in its current state then I am sorry. All I can say is that we spend a considerable time, considering our limited resources, working on it every single year and making it better every single year, nobody can dispute that.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Calvert98

There are so many features in the game currently that could be expanded / made deeper / improved, that I do agree that I would rather see them work on things in the game, than add more stuff (unless that stuff is directly connected to features already in the game).

Anyway, I play-out all of my games as well and 3D has added a lot to that experience. That said, I would really like to see it improved, beyond just wall vanishing and play timing. I think the 3D as a whole needs to take another step forward at this point.

For me personally the timing is the worst problem right now. Often it does not make much sense (like multiple stated examples show)... a slow guy being thrown out at home by a 130 mph throw by 50 feet looks weird, of course. But, as stated, we are improving this every year and will focus even more time on it for OOTP 22.

[BusterKing]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

And this statement, as I have said many times, is simply false. PT has a dedicated development & marketing team. While I personally jump between teams where the need arises, the development resources for the OOTP core game has increased considerably in the past years, something that would not have been possible without PT.

The more teams you have to spend your time the less they are getting of your time... exactly my point.

[DCG12]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

The more teams you have to spend your time the less they are getting of your time... exactly my point.

I think you misunderstand the role Markus plays these days. Based on what was communicated to the beta team the last several years that I participated Markus fills more of a CEO role now. This isn't OOTP 5 where he was doing a majority of the coding. He checks in on the various teams in order to steer the ship but isn't coding it all himself.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

The more teams you have to spend your time the less they are getting of your time... exactly my point.

Do you, once in a while, say out loud what you post here? You should, because you'd notice how utterly ridiculous especially this post is.

It's called delegating tasks and responsibilities.

Ford has had manufacturing operations worldwide, including in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. Ford also has a cooperative agreement with Russian automaker GAZ. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_M...any#Operations

Whoah. With Ford's CEO Jim Hackett having to jump between this many teams, I bet they don't get any cars built at all!

[AdequateRandomGaming]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

Its probably more money then OOTPb usually had. But its not like the amount of copies of the game skyrocketed or anything. It is still a very very small Indy title.

I mean it only gets about 1700 daily steam users. No way to know how many stand alone copies there but I'm guessing it isn't "tons". Motorsport Manager 4 years old and still gets 1300 daily steam users. Football Manager we are talking like 100k!!!!!! Just to give some comparisons.

So even if PT is bringing in extra money its not bringing in those kinds of numbers because OOTPb isn't a popular title. If it was popular then there be content creators covering OOTPb on Youtube and Twitch and Mixer. Go search you can't find anything. Stuff with a couple hundred or couple thousand views thats it. Even small Indy titles can get hundreds of thousands of views on multiple vids from multiple creators.

The official ootp channel only gets a couple hundred views per video. SO PT might have people buying packs which increases profit I would guess but its not like selling a million copies of a game.

The PT money will come from 20% of the PT users. That is how pay to play games all work. There are always 20% whales vs the majority. Before Covid the same was true with Netflix around 70% of its paid users haven't used it in months.

The only way PT would be a huge success is if it can go mobile. Most of all the pay to play, daily fantasy gamblers all play those things on mobile and not the PC. PT is really for an entire different fan base. I played it all last year and it was entertaining and I enjoyed it. But I now I have no interest in ever doing it again. Its not a real "video game" its an extension of fantasy gambling/competition.

Even its current iteration of OOTPb 21 I don't see it appealing to gamers. It appeals to baseball fans, stat results driven crowd and people that like to create their own worlds.

This is probably the last thread I'll be following on here. Then I'll check back around Xmas see if anything is changing for the better.

But I've sworn off OOTP. Its a non purchase from now on, unless a new revolutionary leap happens which is highly unlikely. I've moved my sports sim to Football Manager. It is just about a million times better "gaming experience".

Yes they are much bigger, sell more copies, have sega as a producers, larger staff but that is also a weak excuse. My top 5 game of the last several years is Star Traders Frontiers and it was made by 2 brothers. Easily competing with the big boys. RPS (rock paper shotgun) even declared it a top 50 game of the decade or something crazy like that.

Now I don't want anyone to get it wrong. OOTPb isn't a bad game I just realized after 4 years it's not the gaming experience for me. It will probably never be the gaming experience that I want out of a sports management sim either. So its better just to forget about it and move on to the next game.

I am a small content creator. Very small. I do run a series on their Hockey Sim. I also own OOTP. The reason I haven't started an OOTP series is not because the title is small, but because I haven't found a way to make it viable and interesting. With the problems in 3D, playing out games is out of the question. And for me personally, just simming and being the GM is too much like my hockey series.
Not to mention that baseball regular season is very long.
But I get your point that a big time streamer would not really care because it's not typically the type of games that will reel in a ton of views. Small creators like me don't really care about that though...but I do care about how I present things, and I haven't figured out how to do it right for OOTP yet.

[Matt Arnold]

We appreciate everyone's feedback. We're always putting effort into improving all aspects of the game. I'd love to have a team big enough to be able to make massive leaps in all aspects of the game every version or every patch, but we do what we can. We'll have some new animations for the next patch, and still have some more work planned on 3d improvements that may or may not make it to the next patch, but will still come in before we close the door on work on this version.

[jg2977]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Yup, and if PT would not have happened, things like the Ballpark Construction Kit would have never been possible, or the fact that we are hiring a 3D artist to redo all 3D ballparks for OOTP 22. Or a full-time support position, or a full-time marketing position, or three more full-time developers.

I'm happy to hear that all the 3D ballparks will be redone! As a Yankee fan I'm looking forward to playing in a more detailed rendering of current Yankee Stadium.

[Ty Cobb]

I think folks are being far too harsh with their criticism. The 3d has improved by leaps and bounds, and the the Ballpark Construction Kit is a gift from Heaven. Is there room for improvement? Sure. It takes time.

I wonder how many of you critics have submitted a new stadium section for the Kit, or a skybox, or a new dirt/grass for the fields, or a 3d model? I'm not trying to pick a fight...I'm saying that what we contribute to the game helps not only all of us players, but the Development Team as well. It encourages fresh thinking, new directions, and gives them valuable information on the things we as users are looking for. All that crap about many minds being better than one is true...and I am of the opinion that many people are under the impression that Markus has an EA level budget, and I'm willing to wager hard cash he doesn't. Be patient and contribute to the advancement of the game. That's what a community does.

[jg2977]

I know that the 3D is far from perfect, but it enhances the game greatly. I get bored reading lines of PbP text. I know that the 3D will get better so I'm being patient.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

But back on topic. 3D is always under development, and in the last few patches we have made good progress in fixing quirks. The next patch will add new animations and will fine-tune existing ones. It's getting better every year, but there is still a lot of work to do of course. And obviously because we have a stats driven engine and not a 3D engine, what you see in 3D is always an interpretation of the calculated play, same as the PbP, so there will be differences. Having a pure 3D engine is not possible and not desired, as a) simulations would slow to a crawl and b) the tens of thousands of lines of PbP text would be obsolete.

So, if you do not like it in its current state then I am sorry. All I can say is that we spend a considerable time, considering our limited resources, working on it every single year and making it better every single year, nobody can dispute that.

Thank you for speaking with us... much appreciate you and your staff... and your wonderful creation.

I'm amazed at how far the animation has come in just a few years... I never thought I would see it as good as it is today... and I know it will get better as time goes by.

I no longer use the PBP... only the animation... and I love it in spite of its imperfections.
The animation puts me right behind home plate right in the ballpark... there's no better place to be.
Thank you OOTPB!

"Patience, Grasshopper".
(spoken by Master Po to young Caine in the 70s TV series Kung Fu... David Carradine played the role of Kwai Chang Caine, a half-American half chinese character in the old west who had been trained as a Shaolin monk in China.)

[Syd Thrift]

This will sound like I'm just me-too'ing Markus but I just don't see how "fix the 3D" is helpful, like at all. If there are plays that are off - and I agree, there are a lot of plays that are off - the 3D Bugs forum has a very specific way you can send them in to be quashed. I'm seeing, FWIW, a great deal of progress this year on the bugs that have been mentioned. I'm not seeing any of the straight up Bugs Bunny throws, for instance - yes, there are a couple plays where the second baseman makes a slow-ish throw to first on an infield single, but it used to be a lot worse.

The bottom line is, 3D is not one "thing" that needs to be fixed, it's a lot of different, little things. FWIW FM has exactly the same issue; they've just also had a decade to get rid of the really silly bugs and add in a bunch more cool-looking gameplay.

As for the complaints that it's not behaving like FM... I mean, what did you expect? Personally I would *love* to see a transition to a physics-based engine. We have about a decade's worth of accumulated data to do that now and it would be freaking amazing. That being said, that "little change" means completely tearing down and rebuilding how the game currently works. The last time Markus did that he took a year off of versions and everyone complained that the sky was falling. On top of that there *will* be bugs in any new engine, huge ones, bugs that lead people to refuse to buy the new, physics-based version until they are fixed. I bet historical play will take literally years to get right (and, sorry to those of y'all who like 19th century ball but that may never get fixed).

Baseball is just straight up different from soccer. Sorry to sound flippant, but it just is. On the one hand you've got a zillion stats in baseball that you can use to make a game "feel" like virtually any era you want. That's hard to impossible to do with soccer, and it's a huge part of why FM has never even bothered to deal with historical play (plus, there's that whole issue with changing strategies in soccer - if you played in the 30s you'd almost have to limit people to the 2-3-5 or the W-M - whereas baseball has remained mostly static strategy-wise, with the changes coming more in the frequency of how often you employ stuff like the hit and run or pinch hitting or the use of relievers rather than brand new tactics). On the other hand, all of those stats means you can't just throw out the old engine that produces realistic stats, replace it with one that might not, and expect people to be OK with it (which I believe is more or less what happened when FM transitioned to a completely physics-based engine even for sims).

[eldur00]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

I think folks are being far too harsh with their criticism. The 3d has improved by leaps and bounds, and the the Ballpark Construction Kit is a gift from Heaven. Is there room for improvement? Sure. It takes time.

I wonder how many of you critics have submitted a new stadium section for the Kit, or a skybox, or a new dirt/grass for the fields, or a 3d model? I'm not trying to pick a fight...I'm saying that what we contribute to the game helps not only all of us players, but the Development Team as well. It encourages fresh thinking, new directions, and gives them valuable information on the things we as users are looking for. All that crap about many minds being better than one is true...and I am of the opinion that many people are under the impression that Markus has an EA level budget, and I'm willing to wager hard cash he doesn't. Be patient and contribute to the advancement of the game. That's what a community does.

I'm not sure anyone thinks Markus has a budget like EA. In fact, nobody here is complaining about the quality of the graphics per say. I think most of us understand what this game is, and I know I am totally fine with graphic quality. I'm not fine with the "beta feel" 3D has with the delays, etc.
It is true 3D has improved. But you're looking at it as a contributing fan that has been here for a while. How is someone that is buying the game for the very first time going to react to how 3D works right now ?
I just think 3D would have been a fine addition if they would have been working on it on the side and wait for it to be working a lot better than it is right now. Right now, it's clunky. And I'm 100% sure they will get it right in due time.

We are allowed to be fans of the game and think some parts are not up to the standards we have been accustomed to, without being angry, picking a fight, or having an agenda. I bet the game would not be as good as it is if everyone would just always agree with everything and thinks every single feature is grand or making excuses for when it's not as grand as the rest.

[Syd Thrift]

Who are these new users? If they're people coming in from The Show, the 3D is never going to look as good as a AAA title, period. If they're coming in from FM, they might be a little turned off by what it looks now but at that if they've patronized FM for long enough they'll remember how clunky FM's first few iterations of 3D looked (not to mention the little circles with "feet" of the early 2D engine). If they're older players who played Microleague or Earl Weaver back in the day and they want something that works a bit like that, they'll be very, very satisfied (the game's graphics pretty much *are* Microleague, only about a thousand times better, and of course the engine underneath is far deeper as well). If they're pure stat people they might not care one way or the other (or, hell, they might; I personally didn't care about 3D until suddenly I did).

I don't think anyone is saying "nobody's allowed" to have gripes. It's that when the griping is unfounded ("they're spending all these resources on PT when they could be using them to update the AI or glitches in the 3D graphics!!!") or, frankly, useless ("3D broken pls fix"), you get pushback. Everyone, fanboys included, is allowed to have their own opinion on stuff. Everyone, fanboys included, should not expect that their opinion be held above reproach just because it belongs to them.

[Blackmissiongoggles]

While I agree with a lot that'as been said (seeing the walk-off achievement before actually seeing the play was disappointing) I absolutely love that I can set my pre-pitch camera to a wide stadium shot, set my pitching camera to behind the pitcher and the in-play camera to something resembling a broadcast camera. It gives each game a television-like feel and I've never felt this immersed in the on-field stuff, but yeah, the inconsistencies and awkward infield hits are annoying.

I really look forward to seeing how it improves.

[Syd Thrift]

The big thing I want to see before I start zooming in closer or using the “center field” cams are:

- more variation in uniforms from the waist down, and at that probably a revamp of the way those are modeled onto the 3D figures. At the very least though I’d love to see some kind of option to set player to player and team to team re: showing stirrups, how tight those pants are (with looser flannel before the 60s, then those super tight polyester models into the 90s before a return to the “in between” flavor we have today), not to mention sleeveless jerseys and so on.

- more batting stances, ideally with some sort of in game effect with them. Like, a guy with an open stance might get a slight bonus to Avoid Ks compared with a guy with a closed stance (but then the closed stance player might get a very slightly higher BABIP along with a higher percentage of balls hit the other way). Some guys would hit from a crouch (maybe a plus to Eye with a small malus to Power), others standing straight up (the opposite). While this would largely be flavor, it would spice up the game a bit.

- I like the 3 pitching stances, too, but we could maybe even use more. Have knuckleballers really look like they’re just soft tossing it out there, for example. Make some guys fall off the mound a la Bob Gibson or go into really wild windups a la Luis Tiant. Maybe even the occasional stop motion stance like Tom Brennan or Hideo Nomo. Generally speaking, one of the little joys of baseball is that everyone has a slightly different approach to the game.

- Sure, let’s fix some more gameplay weirdness. Also, the game still doesn’t show rundowns well.

- I’d also love to see a bit better job done in constructing the plays. There’s a big argument that you can tell really early what the result is going to be. Personally I can mostly suspend disbelief on this but I see the point since Microleague was *hugely* this way. IMO I don’t think you necessarily need to change up the game engine itself much at all, just maybe feed the 3D engine more information. A flow could look like this:

1. The ball is determined to go in play to one of the zones. That plus the complexity of the play (see below) could more or less always determine where exactly in the zone it goes to.

2. Then I *think* what the game does is it grades the fielding “chance”. There are plays where a player will nearly always make the play and plays where the player almost never makes it. The 3D engine should use that to a. determine exactly where the ball goes, and b. how the fielder reacts to it (like, a very hard play toward short should almost always involve a dive or, in future versions, so,e other kind of acrobatic graphic). I think the game actually does some of this already; just make it intrinsically tied.

3. If an easy play results in an error, that’s where you’d see a lot of those badly muffed ground balls. If an easy play results in a base hit, you’d probably be seeing a ball go through the zone with the infielder just kind of waving at it. Since you’d see that happen way more often with a bad fielder than with a good one, you’d also be giving players feedback on fielding, which would be awesome and amazing.

4. For the most part, I think the game should err on the side of a fielder holding the ball for too long instead of making the Bugs Bunny throws. The only time I think you want to see slow motion throws are on routine plays and even then eventually those should have the graphics changed to the fielder lobbing the ball.

5. Likewise, throws from the outfield that come in late should err on the side of the fielder not getting the ball out of their glove in time instead of relaying it to someone who looks like they could throw a runner out by 30 feet but doesn’t. Like, you should just be able to time how long it takes a runner to get home and if you want it to end that way, just make the outfielder bobble the ball or just take an extra step or two to throw it in. Again, this should automatically happen more often with guys who have poor arms.

[bwiese3908]

Just my 2 cents, take it for what it is worth:

1, I would much rather have extra time and effort spent on making the AI better. To me that is the core of the gameplay. I would like to see the game progress to the depths of Football Manager AI (some questionable moves) but overall leaps and bounds better in my opinion. Better AI = more challenge, relistic owner goals, realistic GM/Manager careers i.e. job offers, reputation etc. The core of the game relies on the AI, and when I see the AI trade away it's best playes for pure garbage... it is maddening.

2. I play in 3D as well and definitely think it can be improved. One trick that i do to make it more in sync is set the 3D animation speed to fast or even very fast.. it makes it way more smooth.

TLDR- OOTP Team, please put efforts and time into the AI and core of the gameplay before working on animations please!