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

[BrianU]

Quote: Originally Posted by WaitTilNextYear

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.

Judging a players via rating vs via statistics is very different. Rating makes your decision on who to pinch hit with or reliever to bring in an absolute 100% correct choice. The highest rated player. It makes the decision for you and you can't ever be wrong. But if you are viewing their stats that's very different.

One guy could have a higher contactvL rating (the only thing that matters and the right choice) but perhaps another guy has a higher avgvL the season or last month because he is warm, but a lower contactvL at that moment. It let's you make the 'wrong' choice when currently that's impossible to do. Limited information is realistic.


And there is 0% chance they would ever remove the ratings from franchise mode because it would cause a riot. I don't see the logic in arguing for giving people less ways to play more options are always good.

Sent from my LGLS660 using Tapatalk

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

Judging a players via rating vs via statistics is very different. Rating makes your decision on who to pinch hit with or reliever to bring in an absolute 100% correct choice. The highest rated player. It makes the decision for you and you can't ever be wrong. But if you are viewing their stats that's very different. One guy could have a higher contactvL rating (the only thing that matters and the right choice) but perhaps another guy has a higher avgvL the season or last month because he is warm, but a lower contactvL at that moment. It let's you make the 'wrong' choice when currently that's impossible to do. Limited information is realistic. And there is 0% chance they would ever remove the ratings from franchise mode because it would cause a riot. I don't see the logic in arguing for giving people less ways to play more options are always good. Sent from my LGLS660 using Tapatalk

Ratings don't give you a 100% accurate choice though. There is variability in what might happen. Same deal as with deciding based on stats--you are making an educated guess, not perfect choice. A 99 CON guy could very well go strike out and thwart your 100% certain plan. A 40 CON guy could very well hit a walk off homer.

[TheWarmWind]

I know it's off topic but it seems to be the hot issue in this thread right now.

I just want to say that if they made a switch in game that could turn off ratings and instead have all of your players scouted on the 20/80 scale with no overall and potential inaccuracies based on the quality of your scouts (or coaches), I would totally play that way.

I'm not saying it's a priority for me to put in the game though, I have other things higher on my list (no need to get into that here). Just saying if it was there I would definitely use it. I only use ratings as a guideline and to help with trades anyways, so a mode like this would just add to the authenticity.

It'd be even cooler if they showed stats like sprint times, avg bat speed, avg pitch velocities etc. But again, not a priority of mine.

[BrianU]

Quote: Originally Posted by WaitTilNextYear

Ratings don't give you a 100% accurate choice though. There is variability in what might happen. Same deal as with deciding based on stats--you are making an educated guess, not perfect choice. A 99 CON guy could very well go strike out and thwart your 100% certain plan. A 40 CON guy could very well hit a walk off homer.

If you were playing for a million dollars and you had bases loaded with the pitcher up in a 3 run game, would you ever under any circumstance pinch hit with a 96 power guy over a 97 power guy all else equal? You would pick the 97 because it gives you the best chance. That is an absolute there is nothing required but looking at a number.

Now in that same situation if you saw your player A had 40 HR and player B had 35 HR who would you choose? Well that's much different because perhaps player A had more ABs, perhaps player B had a poor start to his season and has picked it up lately. To me choosing player and only knowing/viewing their statistics is infinitely more authentic. I know it is a radical idea I just wish developers and everyone saw how great it could be. Take us away from judging numbers and instead judge players.

There is variability in the at-bat but there is no variability in the decision making process of who to use to pinch hit. The contact/power ratings are their current rating. If it showed their beginning of season ratings which can change month to month it would be better because it requires you to know how your player has been playing recently but to me the best is fully judging off statistics. Showing the current ratings of every player for every situation just makes it more videogame and less baseball. I have no problem if anyone likes the current way I just am arguing for another option.

Imagine having Big Papi on 2nd base with 2 outs bottom 9 down 1 run to the Yankees. On your bench it doesn't show you each players Speed rating it just shows their steals and triples and whatever else. With the current system you absolutely pick the highest Speed rated player to pinch run but in a statistic based system it requires you to understand the players much more.

[BrianU]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheWarmWind

I know it's off topic but it seems to be the hot issue in this thread right now. I just want to say that if they made a switch in game that could turn off ratings and instead have all of your players scouted on the 20/80 scale with no overall and potential inaccuracies based on the quality of your scouts (or coaches), I would totally play that way. I'm not saying it's a priority for me to put in the game though, I have other things higher on my list (no need to get into that here). Just saying if it was there I would definitely use it. I only use ratings as a guideline and to help with trades anyways, so a mode like this would just add to the authenticity. It'd be even cooler if they showed stats like sprint times, avg bat speed, avg pitch velocities etc. But again, not a priority of mine.

For full disclosure I never use scouting or do my own draft in franchise modes because I just feel is too easy to have an advantage over CPU teams. So the bigger point for me would be hiding ratings in franchise menus and in gameplay. I don't think it would really take much resources from other areas but I don't know for sure. Seems worth it because it would be innovative and forward thinking, no other sports game has given that option that I know of (besides OOTP) and baseball is the perfect sport for it.. It just makes perfect sense to me now that we have real stat tracking. Sorry for sidetracking any discussions this year just has me hyped up for franchise.

[dran1984]

Quote: Originally Posted by kbusch22

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.

Yea, I think I have seen a few people before that have said they use the DL work around.

[nomo17k]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

Judging a players via rating vs via statistics is very different. Rating makes your decision on who to pinch hit with or reliever to bring in an absolute 100% correct choice. The highest rated player. It makes the decision for you and you can't ever be wrong. But if you are viewing their stats that's very different. One guy could have a higher contactvL rating (the only thing that matters and the right choice) but perhaps another guy has a higher avgvL the season or last month because he is warm, but a lower contactvL at that moment. It let's you make the 'wrong' choice when currently that's impossible to do. Limited information is realistic. And there is 0% chance they would ever remove the ratings from franchise mode because it would cause a riot. I don't see the logic in arguing for giving people less ways to play more options are always good. Sent from my LGLS660 using Tapatalk

This is one of the major reasons why I have not really been able to get into a franchise type of mode in a game that exposes the true drivers of in-game performance. When true attributes of players are not obscured in any way, then the game is actually tipping what *truly* your best option is (in choosing players, for example), and our best strategy would always be what the in-game ratings tell us, and, probability wise, there really isn't any other options that make more sense.

In that sense, we are being deprived of what would be rather fun opportunities to "evaluate" our players, based on whatever criteria *we* think to be the best. In real life, that guessing game itself is an enjoyable game itself.

If we really truly knew what OVR (or more precisely, their individual attirubtes) all these minor leaguers have in real-life, there would be nothing to enjoy in creating top-prospect rankings, etc. But that's what the game is basically doing, when it exposes their true attribute values.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianU

For full disclosure I never use scouting or do my own draft in franchise modes because I just feel is too easy to have an advantage over CPU teams. So the bigger point for me would be hiding ratings in franchise menus and in gameplay. I don't think it would really take much resources from other areas but I don't know for sure. Seems worth it because it would be innovative and forward thinking, no other sports game has given that option that I know of (besides OOTP) and baseball is the perfect sport for it.. It just makes perfect sense to me now that we have real stat tracking. Sorry for sidetracking any discussions this year just has me hyped up for franchise.

Quote: Originally Posted by nomo17k

This is one of the major reasons why I have not really been able to get into a franchise type of mode in a game that exposes the true drivers of in-game performance. When true attributes of players are not obscured in any way, then the game is actually tipping what *truly* your best option is (in choosing players, for example), and our best strategy would always be what the in-game ratings tell us, and, probability wise, there really isn't any other options that make more sense. In that sense, we are being deprived of what would be rather fun opportunities to "evaluate" our players, based on whatever criteria *we* think to be the best. In real life, that guessing game itself is an enjoyable game itself. If we really truly knew what OVR (or more precisely, their individual attirubtes) all these minor leaguers have in real-life, there would be nothing to enjoy in creating top-prospect rankings, etc. But that's what the game is basically doing, when it exposes their true attribute values.

The problem I have with this argument and line of thinking is that an attribute rating of 73 (pick any number from 0-100 really) can result in a range of outcomes and the alternatives to ratings are not as concealing as some might think. This isn't a simple algebra problem where plugging in X rating gives you Y stat in a predictable fashion with no 'fog of war'. One can see with simming seasons that a player has a pretty wide range of outcomes despite having the same set of ratings entering into each sim. People are overly downplaying the variability built into the ratings --> results process. As for played games, I'd imagine that your user inputs and global settings are at least as important as the ratings of the players you use.

And if we are looking at historical stats or at a scouting report that is basically saying the same thing as ratings (all of them answer the basic question: how good is this player?), how is that different really? If you have a choice between 40 HR guy and 35 HR guy and you need a homer, you pick the 40 HR guy much like you'd choose a 95 POW guy over a 90 POW guy. In both cases, the weighted dice roll is in your favor. In both cases, you are basing your decision on a number. In both cases, your decision still might not work out. And if you're making decisions on who to play based on scouting, you simply go with the guy with the most glowing report from your scout. No matter the system, there is not a way for the game (remember it's a game and we can't have real life uncertainty in there sorry to say) to completely hide its dealings from us. We'd either see the advantageous choice/player in numerical ratings (like we do now), or we'd see this same thing in stats--pick the guy with the better stats--(like what BrianU is proposing), or we'd see it in the language in scouting reports (as others have proposed), or we'd see it in some combination of the three.

I don't think anyone's really made it clear exactly how a ratings-less system fundamentally changes what you are doing when managing a team. Your data is just different, but it's still interpretable data that serves the same purpose. You can't really have a true mystery unless inputs and outputs are completely unrelated. People have made the case that ratings are tacky or that they prefer looking at different sets of numbers, but they haven't made a credible case that going from ratings to the vast 'other' in order to evaluate players is actually apples vs oranges, imo.