Improvements for future versions

[albey17]

I have played now about 10 traditional seasons with different teams in both leagues. I have reached halfway thru the season with all of them and went into the next season with 2, playing every single game from the first pitch to the last out. Here's what I think should be changed moving forward:

* Too many strike outs (players strike out WAY too much, even good contact hitter). It is normal to finish games with 12-15Ks a piece. This has to be toned down.
* Good hitters going 1-30 is normal in every simulation. Every season I played, there's 1 or 2 hitters in the lineup that go a month without getting a single hit. I'm talking established MLB players, not prospects.This has to be addressed as it is not normal for Jose Altuve to go 1-32 with 14Ks.
* Either too few homers or too many. Seasons with Joey Gallo hitting 64HR and Mike Trout 26Hr. Both with 150+ games played.
*When using a starting pitcher as a reliever, his stamina will always decrease like if he was a middle reliever, no matter his stamina. Cant use the "opener" strategy due to this.
*Good teams finish regularly with disastrous records, like the Yankees or Astros finishing 10-15 games under .500. No injuries, just everyone sucking at once.
*Too many defensive errors/too many wild pitches/too many balks. I've had games where more than 1 balks have been called. In a regular MLB season, it is EXTREMELY rare to see a balk called in any single game. Infielders make too many errors and pitchers throw so many wild pitches, makes you think the ball is wet.
*Outfielders make too many stellar catches. There's too many highlight plays in the outfield.
*Slow runners get constantly picked off for no reason, down in the score in the late innings.
*Hitters swing at pitches with a 3-0 count, which makes no sense. Especially when they swing at a pitch that turned out to be a ball as well.

These are my recommendation for fixes to this game. If they can be made, this might become my favorite sports sim game of all time.
Thank you

[PSUColonel]

Close the thread.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Close the thread.

Why???

[Shoeless' Socks]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Close the thread.

Why are you being this way? Can you not read a room? Can you not be less selfish and stop putting your proverbial turd in our punch bowl.

If you don't love the game, fine but stop being a moron about it.

[zappa1]

Hahahaha way too funny. Revenge. They closed mine down. Colonel I thought you were better than that.

[HRBaker]

(removed as requested)

[DJ_Jak_32]

Smells like an undercover "cop" if you get my drift

[Sweed]

I'm not going to assume the OP is a setup and answer the post.

Autocalc fixes most of your issues.

Most of the rest is you not understanding probabilities and sample size.

A small number are design decisions that may need some improvement. Tune if for v24 and see if they are improved. You don't have to buy to find out, just ask here shortly after release.

Ok, questions are answered, nothing more to see here.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by albey17

* Too many strike outs (players strike out WAY too much, even good contact hitter). It is normal to finish games with 12-15Ks a piece. This has to be toned down.

Cleveland had the lowest K rate in baseball in 2022 at 7.06. The Angels had the highest at 9.5. So 12-15 Ks per game is about right and maybe even slightly low to reflect today's MLB.

* Good hitters going 1-30 is normal in every simulation. Every season I played, there's 1 or 2 hitters in the lineup that go a month without getting a single hit. I'm talking established MLB players, not prospects.This has to be addressed as it is not normal for Jose Altuve to go 1-32 with 14Ks.

We need concrete data, not anecdotes. That said, Jose Altuve went 1-for-28 with 10 Ks in the Astros' first six playoff games this year.

* Either too few homers or too many. Seasons with Joey Gallo hitting 64HR and Mike Trout 26Hr. Both with 150+ games played.

If you don't like statistical variance, then baseball probably isn't the sport for you.

*When using a starting pitcher as a reliever, his stamina will always decrease like if he was a middle reliever, no matter his stamina. Cant use the "opener" strategy due to this.

Yes you can. You just have to set the opener and follower up correctly.

*Good teams finish regularly with disastrous records, like the Yankees or Astros finishing 10-15 games under .500. No injuries, just everyone sucking at once.

Hard to say why they had bad years without being able to look into the stats, transactions, settings, etc.

*Too many defensive errors/too many wild pitches/too many balks. I've had games where more than 1 balks have been called. In a regular MLB season, it is EXTREMELY rare to see a balk called in any single game. Infielders make too many errors and pitchers throw so many wild pitches, makes you think the ball is wet.

We need concrete stats to see if there are too many errors, wild pitches and balks. If there are indeed too many, then it may be your league totals and stats modifiers got messed up.

*Outfielders make too many stellar catches. There's too many highlight plays in the outfield.

What are you basing this observation on?

*Slow runners get constantly picked off for no reason, down in the score in the late innings.

Again, we need data.

*Hitters swing at pitches with a 3-0 count, which makes no sense. Especially when they swing at a pitch that turned out to be a ball as well.

Hitters swing at bad pitches and sometimes they do it in 3-0 counts. It happens.

[Rain King]

The "too many stellar catches" issue they are referring to is likely 3D animation related.

[TC Dale]

The trend to not help someone with understanding what is happening in their game saves, and belittling them is not a trend that is going to be accepted. At least attempt to help OP out by getting more information, and not go to the less acceptable making fun or accusing them of alterior motives.

At least some people are trying to help him out, let's try that instead of piling on. If the trend continues, there are going to be more warnings, and editing of posts to keep things civil.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by TC Dale

The trend to not help someone with understanding what is happening in their game saves, and belittling them is not a trend that is going to be accepted. At least attempt to help OP out by getting more information, and not go to the less acceptable making fun or accusing them of alterior motives.

At least some people are trying to help him out, let's try that instead of piling on. If the trend continues, there are going to be more warnings, and editing of posts to keep things civil.

I am going to make it known right here and now...I was NOT poking fun at the OP. I was/am being sarcastic towards many of the more jaded members of this community. That is all I have to say on the subject, and I really don't find this forum to be constructive any longer.

TC Dale...you may not have been around the last week or so to understand exactly what's going on.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by albey17

*Hitters swing at pitches with a 3-0 count, which makes no sense. Especially when they swing at a pitch that turned out to be a ball as well.

I have one name for you... Vladimir Guerrero. As an Expos fan back in the day I have seen him trying to hit anything and everything.

It happens in real life... but I understand that it could be annoying when playing a game, this is why I play with the one pitch mode.

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, as others have said you can't just say "these numbers feel too high", you have to actually compare them with real-life baseball. I find myself doing this far too often: I'll get mad at the game because I think passed balls and wild pitches are too high, then I go out and look them up and compare them against my league's stats and lo and behold they're pretty much in line with what I thought they'd be. I even had a pet peeve building up about extra innings being too offense-light and even thought I had a mechanism (position players getting tired but pitchers being fresh). I then looked at the actual extra-inning splits for real life vs my league and it was also pretty much right in line with what you'd expect (and tbh I was fully expecting to find an anomaly there because unlike wild pitches and passed balls the game doesn't really do anything to correct for extra inning numbers).

I hear the K thing in particular but... the real issue is that Ks are simply waaaay higher today than they were even circa 2015 and definitely than, say, 1991. That's not a problem with OOTP; if you don't like a high-strikeout environment, play in an earlier era.

[Eugene Church]

Sure do wish folks would ask themselves three questions before they post here on the forum:

Is it TRUE?
Is it KIND?
Is it NECESSARY?

If you can't say "Yes" to all three, then don't post it.... that would make this forum a much nicer place... recently it has gotten too negative for me.

And now back to the topic at hand.

albey17, you might run a test league for 10 or 20 seasons prior to playing your league... that would give you a good idea of what to expect... you could then use the league modifiers and other settings to fine tune the stats you would like... I used to do this and it worked well for me.

Or you might try Sweed's advice and use the autocalculate...he is far more knowledgeable about the game than I am... his way may be easier and more accurate.

I'm like Syd... I don't have any research to prove it, but I think there are too many "diving plays" by outfielders in the 3D animations... there are 3-5 every game that I play out... I keep score when I go to real games... I used an asterisk * to indicate a standout play... if it is a great play I use 2 asterisks ** on my scorebook.

On average I only get 1 or 2 asterisks plays a game in real life.

Anyone know if MLB keeps any record of web gems, perfect plays or plays of the day?

MLB plays 15 games per day... ESPN and MLB don't seem to have 50-75 web gems a day like OOTP... usually less than 10.

[hfield007]

No hard data provided. Just "i see too much of" without actual data.

the part you mentioned about Altuve never going 1-32 but he started the playoffs this year going 1 for 28. Also trout had an 0 for 26 run this year. Buxton went 4 for 41 at one point.

But mostly... every real season in the MLB there are incredibly surprising poor performances and great performances by both teams and players that no one sees coming. the game does well mimicking this but the problem is people tend to get mad when they see teams that finished better in real life or players who performed better in real life not do the same in the game despite the fact the game engine is designed to mimick some unpredictability. turn down your randomness in the settings if you dislike it? or provide actuals from your seasons. the game is NOT perfect by any means but this just seems like a "exactly what i wanted to happen didnt happen" post.

and maybe everything you mentioned is true. idk. but at least give hard numbers compared to real life for league totals,

[oldfatbaldguy]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

I'm like Syd... I don't have any research to prove it, but I think there are too many "diving plays" by outfielders in the 3D animations

Yes, I think the simulation is more realistic than the animation. It's going to be that way in any, or at least almost any, sports sim game you play. It's easy to be confused by that, but I think the more you play the more you get in tune with the "that's how it looks in OOTP" things. The animation is a nice feature but probably shouldn't be taken too seriously. (I actually kind of miss outfielders occasionally chasing extra-base hits out of the stadium, which is something that got cleaned up a version or two ago.)

I also appreciate Eugene's appeal for kindness and civility. I know I've been guilty of being unkind, too.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by oldfatbaldguy

Yes, I think the simulation is more realistic than the animation. It's going to be that way in any, or at least almost any, sports sim game you play. It's easy to be confused by that, but I think the more you play the more you get in tune with the "that's how it looks in OOTP" things. The animation is a nice feature but probably shouldn't be taken too seriously. (I actually kind of miss outfielders occasionally chasing extra-base hits out of the stadium, which is something that got cleaned up a version or two ago.)

I also appreciate Eugene's appeal for kindness and civility. I know I've been guilty of being unkind, too.

OOTP23 still had the right fielder running through the wall occasionally.
At least when I played some games to check it out last spring... maybe they have fixed the problem with patches during the year.

I will not convert my league to OOTP23 until I finish the current season.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

OOTP23 still had the right fielder running through the wall occasionally.

Its inspired by John Madden and the old Lite commercial.

[Brad K]

Everything in the OP is a non realistic complaint except I believe it should not be possible for a player to hit much worse than his worst year or much better than his best year. Those are the year where in real life he got all the bad or all the good luck. The game rates him on actual and then by the normal randomness he's allowed bad or good luck on top of the real bad or good luck.

Anyway, I know this won't be changed. Tony Armas hitting .320 one year and .180 the next is the facts of the game though not the facts of plausible reality.