*** Next patch ***

Markus Heinsohn · 03-05-2002, 01:40 AM

OK, we have gone through all your comments and reports, and here is the list that so far will make it into the next patch:

- Trading AI. The computer valued offered prospects a little too high, so that you could make lopsided trades at times when you included a top prospect.
- Player development. It seems that pitchers develop not as much as one would like. In the future (20+ years) there will be too few quality pitchers at times, resulting in lower payrolls and a higher league ERA. That will be fixed.
- Squeeze bunt problems fixed
- Contract extensions. Sometimes a player refused too fast to talk to you when you made bad offers. This will be adjusted.

Any other problems you'd like to report?

blmeanie · 03-05-2002, 01:45 AM

Markus,
I have read the comments about the trading AI and hope that there still will be the opportunity to make a deal by dangling a top prospect out there. It happens in real life where teams give up their future for a win now scenario.

I guess what I'm hoping is that you don't take it too far the other way based on the feedback.

Great job!

brendanrfoley · 03-05-2002, 01:46 AM

Yeah, I have a problem. You're setting the bar too high! ALl other products look like junk onw! How dare you

?

Markus, you are the best. I have noticed one small thing however. In fact, I've seen it three times...

Sometimes, the PbP will mention that the first baseman is going to "take it himself" then follows up with the "the throw is in the dirt."

Twice it was fine, the othertime it resulted in a error. Um, how can a throw be in the dirt when the ball should be locked in his glove?

Hmmmmmmm.... Anyways, great thanks for this game. It really is quite spectacular.

Especially how I can play a full game in 15 minutes - for that, my girlfriend thanks you greatly

mmartin68 · 03-05-2002, 01:48 AM

Just a cosmetic thing , but the rain delay thing that I mentioned in the tech section. Whenever there is a mention of rain, the next play's PBP in behind the stats. The screen does not go blank to display the PBP. Otherwise I am quite happy

Peter · 03-05-2002, 01:49 AM

Yes, I noticed in the text, a situation where a ball is hit to the first baseman, he fields it, takes it to first himself, and then the text says something like, it's a bad throw, he leaps, he's got it he's out at first. That's a general idea of the text. Those aren't the exact words, but I think you get an idea. It starts out where the firstbaseman is handling the play then it's thrown to him. It's only happened three times, so I'm not sure if its a bug or a rare anomily. ( Is there a difference?). By the way, outstanding game you've got here!

Markus Heinsohn · 03-05-2002, 01:50 AM

Sure, it will be tested by our beta testers before release!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the career slg bug will be fixed. The career SLGs will be calculated the first time you load your league or start the game!

bkurtz · 03-05-2002, 01:53 AM

this one may be tricky (or even impossible) but here it is:
i am having a blast with the reduced ratings but i'm finding extremely difficult to get over the lack of career left/right splits stats. any chance this one could be added? same for homers allowed by pitchers (not showing on career stats).
thanks in advance

TPort · 03-05-2002, 02:07 AM

Someone will eventually ask this, so I will spare the suspense...

When can we expect this second patch to be released?

By no means rush it out. The first patch was great, and came out so quickly. But, you are going to kill yourself with patches every week.

Thanks again for the great work!!!

angryelvis · 03-05-2002, 02:13 AM

Foul balls....foul balls are nice and all but they get tiresome, I had an AB where the count was 3-2 and the batter proceeded to hit 5 foul balls, it got a little repetitive hitting the number pad again and again and again....

Also, I actually play each of my team's games, maybe this puts me in the minority, and it seams that pitchers with A durations who could easily go 8-9 inn in O3 are now running 5-9 inn. (league imported mid-season from O3) I wonder if anyone else is seeing this.

Finally, I'll repost from my pet peeve post yesterday - in game lineup changes are locked in place before returning to the actual game and when you have to change a player (injury, pinch hit, etc...) you can't see the game situation, for example what inning it is

Jason Moyer · 03-05-2002, 02:43 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Markus,Developer:
<strong>- Contract extensions. Sometimes a player refused too fast to talk to you when you made bad offers. This will be adjusted.

Any other problems you'd like to report?

</strong><hr></blockquote>

To go along with this, is there any chance you can add the ability to refuse after too many good offers? As it stands, you can still do the old 'start way too high and work your way down until the player refuses' trick which makes contract negotiation kind of pointless. It would be nice if the player just flat-out refused to talk after a certain number of offers (random and weighted based on loyalty maybe?).

Jason

Jason Moyer · 03-05-2002, 02:49 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Jason Moyer:
<strong>

To go along with this, is there any chance you can add the ability to refuse after too many good offers? As it stands, you can still do the old 'start way too high and work your way down until the player refuses' trick which makes contract negotiation kind of pointless. It would be nice if the player just flat-out refused to talk after a certain number of offers (random and weighted based on loyalty maybe?).

Jason</strong><hr></blockquote>

As a second thought, and maybe this would be easier to code within the current renogiation code, maybe the game could enforce the 'must sign at first acceptable offer' rule? For instance, if you start too high, maybe the player would up his minimum to sign to whatever you offered him?

Imagine if the Phillies could offer Scott Rolen $50mil/year and then keep lowering it until they reach the magic number he'd finally resign at...

Jason

Ksyrup · 03-05-2002, 03:04 AM

Marcus, I've been mainly focused on the long-term viability of the players and thank for you for taking quick steps to address the fall-off in talent among pitchers. Just a question - what makes you think the talent drop-off is just with pitchers?

I agree that I've seen higher league-wide ERAs after the first 10-15 years, and had to adjust the league totals quite a bit to bring them back in line. However, even when I did that, there still weren't enough "superstar" pitchers. I hope your fix will not just keep the league-wide ERAs in check, but will also allow for the development of top-notch pitchers.

Also, when league ERAs were rising, I would have expected to see batting averages get higher, which they did on average, but I still wasn't seeing the highest of high averages that you would expect from the best hitters. That leads me to believe that hitters are suffering the same issues with clumping that pitchers are.

I'll definitely be testing these issues out when the new patch arrives and let you know what I see. Hopefully, this will address most of the 20+ year issues I've encountered with players not fulfilling their potential. Thanks for the hard work!

targy · 03-05-2002, 03:19 AM

I have noticed since the last patch that Strikeout levels for pitchers are a little low.

TommyBoy · 03-05-2002, 03:30 AM

Two things right off: "Browse" feature & auction process for signing coaches/scouts.

When importing leagues, finding the Lahman database, editing stadiums, etc... it would be helpful to have a 'Browse' button to help me locate the proper directory- instead of having to type a long directory name EXACTLY. <a href="http://www.ootpbb.com/board/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000201" target="_blank">Browse feature</a>

I was hoping the signing process for coaches/scouts would be like the new Free Agency period (auction-style). As it is, I gotta hope I'm the high bidder- and I only get 1 shot.
Would it be possible to change it? <a href="http://www.ootpbb.com/board/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000409" target="_blank">coaches/scouts</a>

Khaos · 03-05-2002, 03:38 AM

I still would like control over the minimum salary or a financials based on era so we could use them in older leagues where a player in 1910 won't have a minimum salary of 100,000 dollars.

Maybe, or wait until next year?

Jason Moyer · 03-05-2002, 03:51 AM

Minor bug.

I was just testing some stadium graphics to see how they looked in-game, and noticed that in both league and exhibition mode, no matter which stadium you choose to play in, the game is always played in the home team's stadium.

Jason

Jason H. · 03-05-2002, 03:56 AM

I agree with Ksyrup...I think one of the biggest issues is the 'player clumping' at the ~20+ year mark (i.e. all fictionally developed players being roughly equal). You need to have those superstars develop and pull away from the 'pack' to add to the personality of the league in the long term.

ep1213 · 03-05-2002, 03:58 AM

[quote]
angryelvis wrote:

Also, I actually play each of my team's games, maybe this puts me in the minority, and it seams that pitchers with A durations who could easily go 8-9 inn in O3 are now running 5-9 inn. (league imported mid-season from O3) I wonder if anyone else is seeing this.

<hr></blockquote>

I thought that I read in another post that on a 3-2 count the pitch count get's increased by 5 (as opposed to 1) every time there is a foul ball in that AB. I can not confirm this since I sim all my games.

Great game, Markus.

Pastime Baseball · 03-05-2002, 04:00 AM

Markus,

I don't have the game yet, but judging by the posts on the board, Ksyrup is correct in that the player development issue is affecting both pitchers AND hitters. According to several posts, 20 years or more down the line, no stars emerge; whether we're talking about pitchers or hitters.

Steve

delusional · 03-05-2002, 04:00 AM

I was wondering, not sure if this could be in this version, but you know how you get emails saying, this person improved his batting ave or he is ready to be deactivated.

I have yet to get a he is ready to move to active roster ( from AAA ). Is there a setting I am not using or something to inform me of that?

Also maybe have email statements about trades, like from your scouts saying " joe smoe numbers don't reflect his pay, maybe a trading block move would be useful"

like some email from your couachs stating that so & so should be traded, or we could package this deal or john smith from memphis is on the trading block, he could be a nice pick up.

just a thought .

03-05-2002, 01:40 AM	#1
Markus Heinsohn Developer OOTP Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 24,803	* Next patch * OK, we have gone through all your comments and reports, and here is the list that so far will make it into the next patch: - Trading AI. The computer valued offered prospects a little too high, so that you could make lopsided trades at times when you included a top prospect. - Player development. It seems that pitchers develop not as much as one would like. In the future (20+ years) there will be too few quality pitchers at times, resulting in lower payrolls and a higher league ERA. That will be fixed. - Squeeze bunt problems fixed - Contract extensions. Sometimes a player refused too fast to talk to you when you made bad offers. This will be adjusted. Any other problems you'd like to report? __________________ Buy Out of the Park Baseball 25 now! Download OOTP Go 25 for iOS Download OOTP Go 25 for Android

03-05-2002, 01:45 AM	#2
blmeanie All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Atlanta Posts: 1,044	Markus, I have read the comments about the trading AI and hope that there still will be the opportunity to make a deal by dangling a top prospect out there. It happens in real life where teams give up their future for a win now scenario. I guess what I'm hoping is that you don't take it too far the other way based on the feedback. Great job! __________________ blmeanie email me at blmeanie Above link works for some email client programs but not all, email me at blmeanie33@earthlink.net

03-05-2002, 01:48 AM	#4
mmartin68 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Wooster, Ohio Posts: 135	Just a cosmetic thing , but the rain delay thing that I mentioned in the tech section. Whenever there is a mention of rain, the next play's PBP in behind the stats. The screen does not go blank to display the PBP. Otherwise I am quite happy __________________

03-05-2002, 01:50 AM	#6
Markus Heinsohn Developer OOTP Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 24,803	Sure, it will be tested by our beta testers before release! Oh, and I forgot to mention that the career slg bug will be fixed. The career SLGs will be calculated the first time you load your league or start the game! __________________ Buy Out of the Park Baseball 25 now! Download OOTP Go 25 for iOS Download OOTP Go 25 for Android

03-05-2002, 02:43 AM	#10
Jason Moyer Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 5,108	[quote]Originally posted by Markus,Developer: <strong>- Contract extensions. Sometimes a player refused too fast to talk to you when you made bad offers. This will be adjusted. Any other problems you'd like to report? </strong><hr></blockquote> To go along with this, is there any chance you can add the ability to refuse after too many good offers? As it stands, you can still do the old 'start way too high and work your way down until the player refuses' trick which makes contract negotiation kind of pointless. It would be nice if the player just flat-out refused to talk after a certain number of offers (random and weighted based on loyalty maybe?). Jason __________________ "I pretty much popped everything cold turkey. We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses." -- Tom House "I was very fortunate to have a pitching coach by the name of Tom House...Tom, I really miss those days that we spent in the weight room and out on the field working together." -- Nolan Ryan's HoF Induction Speech

03-05-2002, 01:46 AM	#3
brendanrfoley Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 65	Yeah, I have a problem. You're setting the bar too high! ALl other products look like junk onw! How dare you ? Markus, you are the best. I have noticed one small thing however. In fact, I've seen it three times... Sometimes, the PbP will mention that the first baseman is going to "take it himself" then follows up with the "the throw is in the dirt." Twice it was fine, the othertime it resulted in a error. Um, how can a throw be in the dirt when the ball should be locked in his glove? Hmmmmmmm.... Anyways, great thanks for this game. It really is quite spectacular. Especially how I can play a full game in 15 minutes - for that, my girlfriend thanks you greatly

03-05-2002, 01:49 AM	#5
Peter Minors (Double A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Bradenton Posts: 182	Yes, I noticed in the text, a situation where a ball is hit to the first baseman, he fields it, takes it to first himself, and then the text says something like, it's a bad throw, he leaps, he's got it he's out at first. That's a general idea of the text. Those aren't the exact words, but I think you get an idea. It starts out where the firstbaseman is handling the play then it's thrown to him. It's only happened three times, so I'm not sure if its a bug or a rare anomily. ( Is there a difference?). By the way, outstanding game you've got here!

03-05-2002, 01:53 AM	#7
bkurtz Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 161	this one may be tricky (or even impossible) but here it is: i am having a blast with the reduced ratings but i'm finding extremely difficult to get over the lack of career left/right splits stats. any chance this one could be added? same for homers allowed by pitchers (not showing on career stats). thanks in advance

03-05-2002, 02:07 AM	#8
TPort Minors (Double A) Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 109	Someone will eventually ask this, so I will spare the suspense... When can we expect this second patch to be released? By no means rush it out. The first patch was great, and came out so quickly. But, you are going to kill yourself with patches every week. Thanks again for the great work!!!

03-05-2002, 02:13 AM	#9
angryelvis Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 89	Foul balls....foul balls are nice and all but they get tiresome, I had an AB where the count was 3-2 and the batter proceeded to hit 5 foul balls, it got a little repetitive hitting the number pad again and again and again.... Also, I actually play each of my team's games, maybe this puts me in the minority, and it seams that pitchers with A durations who could easily go 8-9 inn in O3 are now running 5-9 inn. (league imported mid-season from O3) I wonder if anyone else is seeing this. Finally, I'll repost from my pet peeve post yesterday - in game lineup changes are locked in place before returning to the actual game and when you have to change a player (injury, pinch hit, etc...) you can't see the game situation, for example what inning it is

03-05-2002, 02:49 AM	#11
Jason Moyer Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 5,108	[quote]Originally posted by Jason Moyer: <strong> To go along with this, is there any chance you can add the ability to refuse after too many good offers? As it stands, you can still do the old 'start way too high and work your way down until the player refuses' trick which makes contract negotiation kind of pointless. It would be nice if the player just flat-out refused to talk after a certain number of offers (random and weighted based on loyalty maybe?). Jason</strong><hr></blockquote> As a second thought, and maybe this would be easier to code within the current renogiation code, maybe the game could enforce the 'must sign at first acceptable offer' rule? For instance, if you start too high, maybe the player would up his minimum to sign to whatever you offered him? Imagine if the Phillies could offer Scott Rolen $50mil/year and then keep lowering it until they reach the magic number he'd finally resign at... Jason __________________ "I pretty much popped everything cold turkey. We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses." -- Tom House "I was very fortunate to have a pitching coach by the name of Tom House...Tom, I really miss those days that we spent in the weight room and out on the field working together." -- Nolan Ryan's HoF Induction Speech

03-05-2002, 03:04 AM	#12
Ksyrup Major Leagues Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 413	Marcus, I've been mainly focused on the long-term viability of the players and thank for you for taking quick steps to address the fall-off in talent among pitchers. Just a question - what makes you think the talent drop-off is just with pitchers? I agree that I've seen higher league-wide ERAs after the first 10-15 years, and had to adjust the league totals quite a bit to bring them back in line. However, even when I did that, there still weren't enough "superstar" pitchers. I hope your fix will not just keep the league-wide ERAs in check, but will also allow for the development of top-notch pitchers. Also, when league ERAs were rising, I would have expected to see batting averages get higher, which they did on average, but I still wasn't seeing the highest of high averages that you would expect from the best hitters. That leads me to believe that hitters are suffering the same issues with clumping that pitchers are. I'll definitely be testing these issues out when the new patch arrives and let you know what I see. Hopefully, this will address most of the 20+ year issues I've encountered with players not fulfilling their potential. Thanks for the hard work!

03-05-2002, 03:19 AM	#13
targy All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 1,152	I have noticed since the last patch that Strikeout levels for pitchers are a little low. __________________ www.emerge180.com

03-05-2002, 03:30 AM	#14
TommyBoy Minors (Double A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Purvis, Mississippi Posts: 137	Two things right off: "Browse" feature & auction process for signing coaches/scouts. When importing leagues, finding the Lahman database, editing stadiums, etc... it would be helpful to have a 'Browse' button to help me locate the proper directory- instead of having to type a long directory name EXACTLY. <a href="http://www.ootpbb.com/board/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000201" target="_blank">Browse feature</a> I was hoping the signing process for coaches/scouts would be like the new Free Agency period (auction-style). As it is, I gotta hope I'm the high bidder- and I only get 1 shot. Would it be possible to change it? <a href="http://www.ootpbb.com/board/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000409" target="_blank">coaches/scouts</a>

03-05-2002, 03:38 AM	#15
Khaos Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Canfield, OH Posts: 473	I still would like control over the minimum salary or a financials based on era so we could use them in older leagues where a player in 1910 won't have a minimum salary of 100,000 dollars. Maybe, or wait until next year? __________________ squish

03-05-2002, 03:51 AM	#16
Jason Moyer Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 5,108	Minor bug. I was just testing some stadium graphics to see how they looked in-game, and noticed that in both league and exhibition mode, no matter which stadium you choose to play in, the game is always played in the home team's stadium. Jason __________________ "I pretty much popped everything cold turkey. We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses." -- Tom House "I was very fortunate to have a pitching coach by the name of Tom House...Tom, I really miss those days that we spent in the weight room and out on the field working together." -- Nolan Ryan's HoF Induction Speech

03-05-2002, 03:56 AM	#17
Jason H. Bat Boy Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 11	I agree with Ksyrup...I think one of the biggest issues is the 'player clumping' at the ~20+ year mark (i.e. all fictionally developed players being roughly equal). You need to have those superstars develop and pull away from the 'pack' to add to the personality of the league in the long term.

03-05-2002, 03:58 AM	#18
ep1213 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: St. Louis, MO Posts: 20	[quote] angryelvis wrote: Also, I actually play each of my team's games, maybe this puts me in the minority, and it seams that pitchers with A durations who could easily go 8-9 inn in O3 are now running 5-9 inn. (league imported mid-season from O3) I wonder if anyone else is seeing this. <hr></blockquote> I thought that I read in another post that on a 3-2 count the pitch count get's increased by 5 (as opposed to 1) every time there is a foul ball in that AB. I can not confirm this since I sim all my games. Great game, Markus.

03-05-2002, 04:00 AM	#19
Pastime Baseball Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 22	Markus, I don't have the game yet, but judging by the posts on the board, Ksyrup is correct in that the player development issue is affecting both pitchers AND hitters. According to several posts, 20 years or more down the line, no stars emerge; whether we're talking about pitchers or hitters. Steve

03-05-2002, 04:00 AM	#20
delusional Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Philadelphia Posts: 252	I was wondering, not sure if this could be in this version, but you know how you get emails saying, this person improved his batting ave or he is ready to be deactivated. I have yet to get a he is ready to move to active roster ( from AAA ). Is there a setting I am not using or something to inform me of that? Also maybe have email statements about trades, like from your scouts saying " joe smoe numbers don't reflect his pay, maybe a trading block move would be useful" like some email from your couachs stating that so & so should be traded, or we could package this deal or john smith from memphis is on the trading block, he could be a nice pick up. just a thought . __________________ USBA - Philadelphia Mavericks t