Think Outside The Box: "Out of the Box" Discussion and Observations

[Bobhead]

What are you seeing? What problems immediately jump out at you? I have no idea if this type of thread will, or can, succeed, but I'll give it a shot.

I know a lot of guys are looking to publish their sliders as soon as possible, but sample size always presents a problem. With this thread I hope guys can confirm observations with each other, reinforcing ideas and thoughts, and reducing (but not erasing) the need for extensive testing/sample evaluation.

For example, let's say fielders throw with too little power out of the box. Ideally you'd want to play a few games and give yourself a definitive opinion on that issue, because there's always a chance you just thought wrong. But if 20 other users agree with you and see the same thing, that chance of you being incorrect is a lot smaller, and maybe you'll only need to play 3-8 games to confirm something, instead of 15-30.

Maybe someone is recording The Show stats for a particular area, that might be beneficial?

Communication and collaboration can do nothing but save time for yourself and others.

[BrianU]

Good idea. I don't get the game/my system till Monday but I am OCD when it comes to perfecting sliders so I know i'll have much to contribute this year. I am an outside the box thinker. I enjoy seeing what other people come up with and how they have different playing styles. You can have two different people play the same sliders/settings and have radical different outcomes so I try to explain my playing style in the slider set I'm making.

Sometimes you can't get the desired outcome from adjusting a slider and thats when I try to come up with nifty 'house rules' to make things more realistic.

I've never kept track of stats before, my style of making sliders is to play 1 game and adjust things overkill and keep repeating the process till I get where I want it but this year I think I will try to be more methodical. I was thinking of how I can make a spreadsheet to track games then remembered this thread I read a few days ago and found this:

Quote: Originally Posted by sbmnky

I sim a lot of my games, so I keep this spreadsheet for stat tracking of games I play. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1FG...it?usp=sharing

He did an excellent job at making that it makes tracking stats much easier and adds the totals up for you! The only thing I don't see working is per game stats but i'll figure it out. Definitely excited to finding out how to get the most out of this game and helping others achieve that too for all playing styles

[Majingir]

From the games I've played so far, main thing is that amount of balls the CPU throws needs to be decreased(and likely same thing for users as well,just not as much as CPU).

Might just try decreasing that first to see how default sliders are like,if CPU starts walking people.

[ralphieboy11]

Good idea here.

I have basically only played one game myself, and I've watched a few cpu vs. cpu games. I like to watch some cpu games at first to get a handle on how the gameplay performs at default.

So far, I'm a tad worried about the baserunning. It seems the aggressiveness of the cpu baserunners has been toned down a lot. While I like that in some respects, I've seen quite a bit of station to station baserunning so far. Many times runners are not scoring from 2nd base with 2 outs on singles to the outfield.

In one instance, there were runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out. A fly ball to right field was one where it was questionable whether the right fielder would get to it. In fact he short hopped it. The runner on 3rd had some indecision about the play and ended up staying on 3rd. So there was a single to right field with a runner on 3rd and he never went home. You never see that.

I'm thinking adjustments to fielder arm strength and baserunning speed could make the cpu more aggressive. I guess the worry would be how would if affect infield play. Would you in turn see too many infield hits by adjusting too much?

[BrianU]

Quote: Originally Posted by ralphieboy11

Good idea here. I have basically only played one game myself, and I've watched a few cpu vs. cpu games. I like to watch some cpu games at first to get a handle on how the gameplay performs at default. So far, I'm a tad worried about the baserunning. It seems the aggressiveness of the cpu baserunners has been toned down a lot. While I like that in some respects, I've seen quite a bit of station to station baserunning so far. Many times runners are not scoring from 2nd base with 2 outs on singles to the outfield. In one instance, there were runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out. A fly ball to right field was one where it was questionable whether the right fielder would get to it. In fact he short hopped it. The runner on 3rd had some indecision about the play and ended up staying on 3rd. So there was a single to right field with a runner on 3rd and he never went home. You never see that. I'm thinking adjustments to fielder arm strength and baserunning speed could make the cpu more aggressive. I guess the worry would be how would if affect infield play. Would you in turn see too many infield hits by adjusting too much?

That is a great detailed observation. I hope/wish the devs read the Slider forum I feel the discussion here is a better place to tweak the game from. If you see a pattern of this maybe you can post it in the bugs thread or make a new post on the front so the devs take a look at it that sounds like a rather important issue and one that shouldn't be too difficult to patch

[Bobhead]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

From the games I've played so far, main thing is that amount of balls the CPU throws needs to be decreased(and likely same thing for users as well,just not as much as CPU). Might just try decreasing that first to see how default sliders are like,if CPU starts walking people.

So you think the CPU throws too many balls? That's something I've never ever read before about this game. Not that I'm questioning you, I haven't actually spent much time with the game yet, it's just a surprising thing to read.

[Bobhead]

What is offense looking like for other people? Going into release I was expecting to encounter slightly high offensive numbers, considering all the hype about the offensive changes. Unfortunately that's exactly what I've seen thus far.

While I've been busy with other things, I've been running CPU vs CPU games in the background all day today. I have the data uploaded for anyone who wants to look. It's the same spreadsheet that's in my sig, and pretty similar to the one I maintained last year.

[BrianU]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bobhead

What is offense looking like for other people? Going into release I was expecting to encounter slightly high offensive numbers, considering all the hype about the offensive changes. Unfortunately that's exactly what I've seen thus far. While I've been busy with other things, I've been running CPU vs CPU games in the background all day today. I have the data uploaded for anyone who wants to look. It's the same spreadsheet that's in my sig, and pretty similar to the one I maintained last year.

That's a great idea to get a hold on things. Does CPU vs CPU games use difficulty levels? Like doesn't the CPU pitch different strike percentages if you select Legend hitting vs All star hitting, so does that setting matter in CPU vs CPU or what level would CPU vs CPU equate to?

Can you use these tests as a base to adjust Human vs CPU sliders I guess is what i'm saying or does the CPU behave different when playing against a human