MLB The Show 16 Twitch Stream - Franchise Mode & Gameplay (Archive Available)

[BrianU]

Quote: Originally Posted by Knight165

Absolutely....100% would love this. '15 went a long way with this...as it seemed to me that there was much more of a chance for a player to play "out of his ratings"....both good and bad..... Sports games have become more of a number shuffling for who has 1 point more in XX category instead of actually looking at a players performance and acting on that and the reports your scouts/coaches would give you. I realize that not everyone would want it this way and that's fine....but a simple front end option to "hide ratings"(except in the editor of course...so you could make changes if you want to) would be so nice IMO. M.K. Knight165

Coach and scouting reports during the season would be sweet. Perhaps a system where you can hire coaches and if they coached on a team previously that you happen to be playing, their 'accuracy' of the information they provide would be increased.

I am going to try this year in my franchise to avoid ratings as much as I can. I wish there was a filter in the statistics screen for Last 30 days as well as the Career and Season stats. It's getting to the point where avoiding ratings is feasible but I think that would really enable it. Also something NBA2k has which is awesome is in the player cards it shows the players recent performance. Like a game log of his stats in previous games all season. That would be great to have as well as an option to click each game to bring up the full box score for every game that season. While I am dreaming big I also wish we had player awards on player cards something I see a lot of people wish. I want the world and we are getting there I feel like they gave us 3/4ths of it this year I am more than pleased with what they've done I am just greedy!

[kbusch22]

Quote: Originally Posted by dran1984

The workaround that I use is a bit different. I will create a first franchise with CPU roster control on. That way I can manipulate the 40-man roster for each game without having to option players. I normally keep my Starting pitchers off the roster unless they are starting that day to create more roster space. Then after Spring Training I go in and create the new franchise and sim through ST and I'm ready to go. However, this only works for the first season of a franchise. Since I play every game I normally have a hard time getting through a full season with one team anyway though.

That's definitely a good one for one-season play. I tend to play one game a series unless it's a huge series, so I get through multiple years. The only problem with my workaround is that there are only so many guys you can have on waivers at any time, I think it's 7 or so. So then after that you have to wait for them to come off of waivers to change the roster more.

An idea just popped into my head, but when you have manual injuries on aren't you able to delete injuries/take players off of the DL at any time? Hypothetically you could manually injure a bunch of star players that you don't need to see early in spring and put them on the 60 day DL to free up spots. Haven't tried doing that one but maybe it would work. It's fudging the roster rules but I don't really care as long as everything is back to normal with the real roster by Opening Day.

[kbusch22]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

This is a great topic. Spring training is quite subpar compared to the season, playoffs, and offseason. It would be nice to have it bolstered at some point but I understand why it's not a top priority. NRI were a big wish for me personally too. Having players fight for position battles toward the end of ST is always great to follow in real life.. It makes me wonder, one of the devs said the progression/attribute changes monthly, do you get that at the end of spring training? That would be huge to making spring training somewhat relevant and would bring in this element of position battles. If a guy has a hot spring maybe he played well enough to boost his ratings past his competition at second base. I am not sure if they do adjust after the month of March and I am leaning towards probably not but I would like for them to for the element it would bring to the game.

It will be interesting to see if this is the case, but I'd have to learn towards most likely not. I just get the impression that ST is viewed as a formality for most of the community, especially since it can be skipped entirely (ie: not even simmed through, just skipped as if it never happened).

[tessl]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bobhead

This was my first thought when I heard/read it was only based on "permanent" lineup position. I know I personally do these types of last minute changes all the time already, because The Show insists on constantly changing my lineups, and I just get tired of fixing them. I hope that doesn't mean I get incorrect penalties and benefits because the "permanent" lineup I use is not necessarily the one I play every day with.

My solution is to not click auto for any roster moves, always do them manually. I believe you will be able to keep a few "stars" relatively happy but the problem will be the rest of the position players. Also pitching will be tricky with only one "ace" who you can keep happy.

I like the concept because it is an attempt to prevent people from loading up unrealistically with a bunch of stars. It sort of adds a human element to the game.

[Lovesports]

Quote: Originally Posted by Knight165

This makes no sense. Saying a player gets better because of past performance is absurd. If what you are trying to say were true....it would be a direct line in one way or the other.....never varying. Not that direct potential driven progression/regression was anything but that anyway....which was the biggest complaint about that.... There is no way a player hits .332 and then magically is "better" the following year. He hit .332 because he improved PREVIOUSLY to starting that season.(he might have hit .300 2 years previous and then .287 his last year before hitting .332......that doesn't happen in performance based progression) The truest algorithm for player performance would be based on.....his potential....his work ethic...his coaching and....chance. Players go through peaks and valleys....not direct arcs.....I could show you thousands of players whose careers had years of great highs followed directly by tremendous lows and then back up. (I think SCEA actually upped the "random" factor to performance last year..and it was great IMO) The system you are alluding to would never allow that. From what I see .....that is NOT what SCEA has instituted(thankfully)....and while performance might be playing a larger role in driving a players attributes......from what Luis stated.....potential...training...coaching and current level will also have a hand. I guess we play...and then comment on the new system! M.K. Knight165

How can this not make sense? You're viewing these ratings as a driving force behind the player's ability instead of viewing it as a scouting tool. As for your example, you're right, he doesn't become better after hitting .332 but he does get "viewed" as better by his peers, coaches, fans, and scouts. I never said player performance should be the only determining factor but it's about time it became more influential.
Here are reasons for why player performance needs to be the primary factor.
1. Player A hits .332 with 40 homers and is currently rated as a 60 overall. In reality, the following year he is now viewed as a minimum 80 overall by scouts, coaches etc. What you are saying is that if he's not an A or B potential he should be a no more than a 63-65 overall the following year. This throws off player contracts, their FA worthiness, and their overall importance to the game. If I win The MVP award with a 60 overall player and next year his ratings don't reflect that, then he signs for barely over the league minimum and hits 8th in some crap team's lineup because he's still viewed as a 60 overall player.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

Now that we have expanded stat tracking I have a loony idea. What if there was an option to hide the ratings altogether? I'd love to have that option so I had to scout players based on their statistics. We have all the info we need.. with progression tied to ratings it makes perfect sense. Viewing ratings just takes you out of the immersion but it's hard to avoid it since they are plastered everywhere in franchise and gameplay. Imagine you are ready to pinch hit for the ptichers but instead of scrolling your bench for the highest contact vs lefty guy, you get information about your bench players AVG vs lefty career, AVG vs lefty season, last month AVG vs lefty. So you still need to know your guys. The highest BA vs lefty isn't necessarily the best guy to pick, perhaps he just happens to be hitting it hot this month or this season but really another guy on the bench is better at the moment. I want to be required to have a feel for my players not looking at some arbitrary ratings that give you the perfect choice 100% of the time. That doesn't feel like managing a baseball team. Think of how much harder and realistic trading would become! Now when you trade you don't look at overalls or contact or power, you look at their statistics of how they are actually performing.. This leads to increased emergent, dynamic results. I am going to try some house rules this year of not looking at player ratings at any point and just statistics but as I said it is hard when they are everywhere and an option to hide them would be much appreciated. Getting rid of perfect information truly makes it a Baseball experience and not a Videogame experience.. This would also include hiding the Potential rating of course another option I'd love! I don't want to know a guy has A potential I want to dig for that myself, there is no reason we need to have access to that in the draft or anywhere. Keep it all under the hood, I want to manage a baseball team not a bunch of numbers. As I saw someone else say they feel like robots not players. The morale was a big step forward with improving that and I feel this would be equally as big. This is my ultimate request for franchise in every game. I know it would be a niche option and I doubt many people would ever use it but to me it would be the greatest single change for immersion. I bring it up because we now have full stat tracking. Just give an option when starting franchise to show or hide ratings defaulted to show. I know this is more of a hardcore feature that only the real knuckle heads like me would use I just think it would be a gamechanger. Hope the devs catch wind of this radical idea and see what they think, I think they said they are already planning for MLB 17 in a few weeks.

Quote: Originally Posted by Knight165

Absolutely....100% would love this. '15 went a long way with this...as it seemed to me that there was much more of a chance for a player to play "out of his ratings"....both good and bad..... Sports games have become more of a number shuffling for who has 1 point more in XX category instead of actually looking at a players performance and acting on that and the reports your scouts/coaches would give you. I realize that not everyone would want it this way and that's fine....but a simple front end option to "hide ratings"(except in the editor of course...so you could make changes if you want to) would be so nice IMO. M.K. Knight165

I would be opposed to scouting-based attributes or not having ratings for a couple of reasons.

For one, the scouting such that it is in this game right now for the draft is one of the weaker and less-fully fleshed out features in the franchise mode. The scouts don't have much (any?) personality other than a handful of numbers that aren't really well defined. Aside from this, scouting all of the players in the league on a regular basis would be such a tall task for 4 area scouts that you'd need a great expansion in the number of scouts...and you'd want more differentiation/personality in your scouts if they suddenly became much more critical to the player rating mechanic. I wouldn't want my entire knowledge of the MLB, or even a sizable chunk, to hinge on the limited scouting system that is currently in place. Now, if the scouting aspect were to get a lot of love and improve in the future, then I could see the draw to adding in a scouting component to ratings. Ditto for coaching, because the coaches are way too basic as just a source the same attribute boosts/nerfs no matter what player we're talking about.

Secondly, there is already "fog of war" in the current system. I believe you want something a little less cut and dried than looking at a rating number to make all roster decisions? But, even with "100% knowledge" of the ratings, some players will inevitably underperform and some will overperform. You will "like to hit" more with some players than others and some of this already feels quite unrelated to just the raw ratings. For example, sometimes I feel (placebo? perhaps) that I bat better with certain batting stance types than others due to having a larger/smaller strike zone and how the AI pitching attacks that specific player. So things like this, which are not based on ratings, can help drive my decisions on playing time and who gets key at bats. I also think you get a nice variety of outcomes in played and simmed games and it never really feels like because player X has contact rating of Y, player X must hit .260 or whatever.

And on some level, if you feel that just scrolling through for the highest CON vLHP is too boring, wouldn't scrolling for the highest Batting Average vLHP feel much the same? Wouldn't the process still be basically reduced to looking at a single number whether that's a rating or a stat? Wouldn't you still be "managing a bunch of numbers" one way or the other?

I realize that you guys are both advocating for an option to have this and I agree that having an option to hide ratings would be perfectly fine, but I'd only want it as an option and not the only way of doing things. And this POV is coming from a guy (or one of a handful of guys) who (1) enjoys playing a "stats only" set up in OOTP and (2) who's probably done more simming and testing the stats and ratings on recent MLBTS titles than anyone not working for SDS right now.

[Lovesports]

Quote: Originally Posted by Knight165

Absolutely....100% would love this. '15 went a long way with this...as it seemed to me that there was much more of a chance for a player to play "out of his ratings"....both good and bad..... Sports games have become more of a number shuffling for who has 1 point more in XX category instead of actually looking at a players performance and acting on that and the reports your scouts/coaches would give you. I realize that not everyone would want it this way and that's fine....but a simple front end option to "hide ratings"(except in the editor of course...so you could make changes if you want to) would be so nice IMO. M.K. Knight165

I agree with his view on it too

[tessl]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

Now that we have expanded stat tracking I have a loony idea. What if there was an option to hide the ratings altogether? I'd love to have that option so I had to scout players based on their statistics. We have all the info we need.. with progression tied to ratings it makes perfect sense. Viewing ratings just takes you out of the immersion but it's hard to avoid it since they are plastered everywhere in franchise and gameplay. Imagine you are ready to pinch hit for the ptichers but instead of scrolling your bench for the highest contact vs lefty guy, you get information about your bench players AVG vs lefty career, AVG vs lefty season, last month AVG vs lefty. So you still need to know your guys. The highest BA vs lefty isn't necessarily the best guy to pick, perhaps he just happens to be hitting it hot this month or this season but really another guy on the bench is better at the moment. I want to be required to have a feel for my players not looking at some arbitrary ratings that give you the perfect choice 100% of the time. That doesn't feel like managing a baseball team. Think of how much harder and realistic trading would become! Now when you trade you don't look at overalls or contact or power, you look at their statistics of how they are actually performing.. This leads to increased emergent, dynamic results. I am going to try some house rules this year of not looking at player ratings at any point and just statistics but as I said it is hard when they are everywhere and an option to hide them would be much appreciated. Getting rid of perfect information truly makes it a Baseball experience and not a Videogame experience.. This would also include hiding the Potential rating of course another option I'd love! I don't want to know a guy has A potential I want to dig for that myself, there is no reason we need to have access to that in the draft or anywhere. Keep it all under the hood, I want to manage a baseball team not a bunch of numbers. As I saw someone else say they feel like robots not players. The morale was a big step forward with improving that and I feel this would be equally as big. This is my ultimate request for franchise in every game. I know it would be a niche option and I doubt many people would ever use it but to me it would be the greatest single change for immersion. I bring it up because we now have full stat tracking. Just give an option when starting franchise to show or hide ratings defaulted to show. I know this is more of a hardcore feature that only the real knuckle heads like me would use I just think it would be a gamechanger. Hope the devs catch wind of this radical idea and see what they think, I think they said they are already planning for MLB 17 in a few weeks.

I understand what you are saying but IRL scouts look at a lot more than stats. They have radar guns and stop watches, they look at a player's physique and athleticism, things which the show simply cannot replicate.

A switch to turn it on and off would be fine but that has gone wrong in the past. I'm thinking of carry over saves forcing you into GM mode unless you are using 30 team control.