Beetlebum's "Statistical All Star Sliders Set"

[Beetlebum]

Hello,

I am not a sliders maker, nor I have the popularity of several sliders guys here on the forum.
But I have a deep passion for sabermetrics and statistics, and I played baseball for several years before “retiring”.

This is my first MLB 2K game since 2K7, and I think this game has a lot of potential (I decided to buy it instead of The Show) but also has some issues that are holding it back.
I have been studying its sliders since day 1, in order to identify how to improve the game, how to make it 100% realistic and to make it look like a real baseball game on TV.

I had been playing at All-Star difficulty, and I found it quite fun and challenging, albeit with some issues that have started to become annoying.
These are the issues that I decided to address in my sliders:

Too many double plays and too easy to turn double plays
Not enough extra base hits
Unrealistic baserunning behaviour (liners into gaps often produce just a single)
Too many flyball-popups dying
Unrealistic infielders plays (the diving and the throw on the knees to first always makes the out)

After experimenting with the sliders and comparing them to lots of games on MLB.TV, I found what I think it is a perfect set.
MLB 2k12 now plays naturally, smoothly, I have seen lots of new animations and new situations on the field: it looks like the game is “unlocked” when tweaking certain setting.

VERSION 1.02 (most likely the final one, as I hit a sweet spot with the game) - MARCH 14th
Now on with the sliders:

Controller Setup:
- Classic Batting
- Total Control Pitching

[These sliders only work with classic batting. I did a lot of experimenting in the drills section and it seems that Total Control batting works differently, as you really have to use the three swings and if you only use the contact one there is a lack of power that does not work with these sliders.]

Pitcher Fatigue: 45
[I changed it from 55 to 45. I was drawing too many walks, because when pitchers get tired tend to throw all over the place and allow too many free passes]

Active Bullpen: On
Catcher Suggestion: Off
Dynamic Player Ratings: Off [This is a MUST]



USER BATTING:
Batting Contact: This is a personal preference. I have seen people complaining because they cannot hit, people complaining because it's too easy, too many Ks, not enough Ks etc. I use the default All Star value of 45
Batting Power: This is really important and should not be touched. If you use Classic Batting it should stay at 50 no matter what sliders and what difficulty level you are playing at.
Bunt Contact: 40
Bunt Success: 45 I left the two bunt values at All Star default. I didn’t really test them, I have bunted a couple of times during my games, I was safe once with Bernadina.
Batter Eye Frequency: 0 (User preference)

CPU BATTING:
AI Batting Contact: Again a personal preference, 55 works fantastic for me (I am striking out an average of 7 batters per game) but that might not work for someone else.
AI Batting Power: Same for human power, it has to stay at 50. Not only it affects Hrs, but also groundballs. If it's higher than 50 there won't be enough GB.
AI Bunt Contact: 60
AI Bunt Success: 60

USER PITCHING:
Pitch Meter Speed: I like it at 65 because I can feel the difference between pitching with the bases empty and pitching from the stretch, which is nonexistent if the meter is too fast.
Pitch Speed: 100 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARXJx...c7AUAAAAAAAAAA I tried to compare a real life pitch with an in-game pitch. The speed that matches a real life fastball (Bard's second pitch both on MLB.TV and in-game) is 100.
Pitch Break Influence: 45 This reduces the CPU tendency to swing and miss. Some of the other sliders set raised CPU contact too much because the CPU was striking out a lot. I think the key is here, because almost all of the swings and misses that I have seen are cause by breaking balls with too much break.
Pitcher Composure Influence: 55 This makes pitching more challenging when the pitcher is in a jam.
Pitcher Control: 30

CPU PITCHING:
AI Pitch Speed: Pitch speed is at 100 As mentioned above
AI Pitch Success: 50
AI Strike Zone Tendency: 50 It looks like the magic number for a realistic pitch count and strike % is 100 combined between Pitch Success and Strike Zone Tendency. In every game I played, the opposing pitchers threw about 140 pitches per game (MLB average is 149) and had a strike % around 60. Having it at 50-50 also solved my problem of too many walks.
AI Pitch Break Influence: 45
AI Pitcher Composure Influence: 50 This is more important than it seems. I don't really believe in intangibles, clutch players and all that stupid mainstream media stuff, but this slider affects strikes and balls thrown. I tried lowering it to 0 and all I saw from the CPU pitcher was strike after strike after strike.

USER FIELDING:
Throw Accuracy: I don't know. I use autofielding (it gives me the feeling of being a pitcher with the whole defense behind me) so I have never thought about this slider. Sorry.
Gather Error Frequency: 50 Due to the fact that I use autofielding, this slider is the same as the CPU fielding.
Throwing Error Frequency: 55 Due to the fact that I use autofielding, this slider is the same as the CPU fielding.
Outfield Throw Speed: 90
Infield Throw Speed: 80 I calculated this value and the one above by looking at the pitch speed. In real life outfielders average 88mph with their throws and infielders between 70 and 80 mph. Therefore if my pitcher pitches at 100, the throws of the position players will be a bit slower.
If you have pitch speed at 75, for example, you might want to use 65 for outfield throw speed and 55 for infield. From what I could see, though, this does not affect the game play drastically.
Outfield Run Speed: 0 This is literally a game-changer, one of my most important findings. When outfielders run at 0, the whole game changes: there is more hit variety, as some flyballs fall in front of the outfielders, some are not caught, some fly past them and against the warning track. What I really didn’t like of the game at default is that the outfielders caught EVERYTHING, every flyball, even the most difficult ones.
Another consequence of this value at 0 is that there are more extra-base hits (coupled with my baserunning speed slider) and I love how the problems of the liners into gaps that often produce just a single is completely gone. Now if you mash the ball in the outfield the result is most of the times a double, like it is in real life.
After this change about 30% of base hits are XBH, just like in the MLB. Wow.
Infield Run Speed: 0 I stayed consistent with the outfielders speed, even though in my opinion this slider does not affect game play too much.

CPU FIELDING:
AI Gather Error Frequency: 50
AI Throwing Error Frequency: 55 In the majors throwing errors are more frequent than fielding (gather) errors, so this slider is slightly higher than the one above. I was tempted to raise the errors, especially the gather errors, as I love the animations of the infielders bubbling the ball, but this combination of 50-55 gives me about one error combined per game, exactly the MLB average.
AI Outfield Throw Speeds: 90
AI Infield Throw Speeds: 80
AI Outfield Run Speed: 0 Same as human, it feels like a brand new game.
AI Infield Run Speed: 0

USER RUNNING:
Base Runner Speed: 70 This is another game-changer, maybe even more important than the oufield run speed.
I have always had the sensation that baserunners were too slow in this game: lots of double plays, not enough close plays at first, not enough extra base hits, that stupid animation of the shortstop that dives to get the ball and on his knees throws it to first and always gets the baserunner. All these issues were affecting the realism of the game.
Plus, I had the visual impression that the runners were slower than real life when stealing a base.
So I took the MLB base stealing times (3.25 seconds for the steal of second base for average players, 2.98 seconds for speedy guys like Bourn, Ichiro or Crisp) and I compared it with the game. I timed a couple of players and my suspects were confirmed: a player like Victorino timed 3.3 seconds to steal second in game. That was too slow.
So I upped the Base Runner slider till I got to the magic number of 70.
Other than a realistic visual effect, the slider is extremely important for other purposes: now it's possible to score from first on a double (like in real life), ofter players go from first to third on a single to right field (like in real life), the baserunner now beats the throw a diving SS almost every time, the double play are gone and like in real life (where the average is 1 double play per game) a defense turns the double play only if the runner is a slow power guy (Dunn, Butler, Ortiz) or if they are in perfect position. My defense turned a couple of double plays, one with the 2B fielding the ball, stepping onto 2nd and then firing to 1st .
So happy to see these results.
Pickoff Success: 40 All star default. I never picked off anyone so far.
Catcher Arm Strength: 65 This is obviously to counter the baserunning speed at 70. The ratio remains the same, and even here I had great results: stolen bases with Gardner and Jemile Weeks, caught stealing with Furcal and Betemit.
Catcher Arm Accuracy: 45 I like to see the occasional high throw from the catcher.

CPU RUNNING:
AI Base Runner Speed: 70 Same as human.
AI Hit-n-Run Tendency: 55 All Star default, like it.
AI Sacrifice Bunt Tendency: 60
AI Squeeze Tendency: 65 The Cardinals with man on 3rd and 1 out played a squeeze against me with Furcal bunting. Really nice to see.
AI Base Running Aggression: 65 Default All-Star.
AI Steal Aggression: 60 Default All-Star.
AI Catcher Arm Strength: 65 Same as human.
AI Catcher Arm Accuracy: 45 Same as human.

These sliders are giving me an unbelievable variety in games: I have had pitching duels, shutouts, offensive outbursts, big innings, multi-HR games, big defensive plays, force outs... everything I wanted from a baseball game.

I am extremely satisfied with these sliders and excited with the games I had. I saw lots on new animations and situations on the field.
Nonetheless, feel free to give me an opinion and tweak them to your liking. Like I said, I use auto-fielding and auto-baserunning, so I don't know how these work with manual settings.

Last, I have to thank all the users who gave their feedbacks in the other sliders thread, it has been super useful to read everybody's opinion.

Enjoy!

Beetlebum

[bigfnjoe96]

BB, Just wanted to say the IF/OF Speed Slider is a great find. You are spot-on about the animation part of your reasoning.

Great Job

I also have been struggling with Pitch Speed. Not because of the hitting part, but because how fast all the balls were being hit. I know some will say it's because of how high the Power Slider is, but i really believe the Pitch Speed Slider is also a culprit.

You don't mind if I incorporate some of your theories (giving you credit of course) into my slider set?

[Beetlebum]

Quote: Originally Posted by bigfnjoe96

BB, Just wanted to say the IF/OF Speed Slider is a great find. You are spot-on about the animation part of your reasoning. Great Job I also have been struggling with Pitch Speed. Not because of the hitting part, but because how fast all the balls were being hit. I know some will say it's because of how high the Power Slider is, but i really believe the Pitch Speed Slider is also a culprit. You don't mind if I incorporate some of your theories (giving you credit of course) into my slider set?

Glad to hear you like my theories
No problem using them in your set, this is the way OS should work.
Being a 2K newbie, I have read your 2k11 sliders thread a couple of times to try to understand how sliders works in this game


In the meantime I took some videos of a game I played this morning, to show eveyone how well (in my opinion) my sliders work.
They are low quality videos, took with my ipod, but you can see what happens in each circumstance.

In the first video Beltran hits a groundball to short, Tejada bubbles it, then grabs it and fires it to first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Zc7...ature=youtu.be

With baserunner speed at 80, the play is close and Beltran is safe, like it should be in real baseball most of the times. With default baserunning around 40-50 he would have been an easy out despite the SS miscue (Tejada was charged with the error).

In the second video Furcal makes a difficult play at short and makes the out at second, but obviously and realistically the batter is safe by a mile at first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQfD1...ature=youtu.be

With default baserunning around 40-50 it would have been an easy double play.

The third play shows how the game changes and opens up with BR speed at 80.
Bases loaded with 2 outs, groundball to 1st. Ike Davis is too far from 1st, he sees the pitcher won't make it in time for the out at 1st so he throws to the shortstop at second for a super realistic force out that ends the inning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGLf3...ature=youtu.be

I believe these settings improve the AI of the CPU, because a beautiful defenisve play like this is really uncommon in videogames. Really satisfied about it!

The last video shows how the line-drives-to-OF-are-always-a-single problem is fixed with great results:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZKf...ature=youtu.be

Torres hits a perfect line drive to CF, which is a double 99% of the times in real baseball, and indeed Torres slides to 2nd and he is safe.
This is thanks to OF speed at 0 and Baserunning at 80, and it makes it look like a play you would see on MLB.TV.
If settings would have been OF speed 30 and Baserunning speed 40 or 50, Torres would have only managed a single. In my opinion it would have been disappointingly unrealistic.

That's it for now

[HC0023]

Im gonna give these a shot . Im having difficulty pitching i always get a message that says BAD GESTURE ?no matter what type of pitch i try . Any way i like simulation results so i will give these a shot .

[bigfnjoe96]

Great video representation of how your theory on ALL the Run Sliders create a more organic feel to game & make the animations jump-out even more.

I fired up your sliders & I'm in a 3-3 tie Top 9. Giancarlo Stanton just hit a 3 run BOMB to tie the game in the 8th off Dave Robertson of the Yankees @ Marlin Park. I had to save the game cause have some stuff to take care of, but just wanted to let you know the feel of the game was superb. Everything looked great.

[jeagles5]

Nice work! Love the videos, gonna give these a shot!

[BrianU]

very nice I like the approach you took to making these, good explanations

a few things I wonder, I'm using mks sliders and even tho his pitching sliders are setup more difficulty I still find pitching on the easy side.

1 mainly in terms of throwing strikes. I see you mentioned lower pitch break so that should help I was seeing a lot of swings and misses but my main issue is strike percentage. you mentioned it for cpu but what about for user? I found with control 15 I still put up an 80% strike ratio. this is even mixing in pitches on purpose outside the zone to get them to chase. the thing is I never miss as long as the cursor is inside the zone, corners are easy to hit and if I do miss it ends up in a different part of the zone not outside like I feel it should sometimes. at the pause and team stats menu it shows strike percentage and I'm usually at 80 even after 5-6 innings I would like to miss the zone more without actually aiming outside

2 curious how many hr you are giving up to cpu a game? mk has power 100 and I like the feeling of knowing I'm one mistake away from giving up a bomb. I like when you mentioned ground ball/fly ball ratio I don't know the numbers but that is important to me too. this year out of the box I see much less grounders which I think is positive but whatever is realistic is what I want it to be

3 your logic is very solid the one area I question is the of/if throw speed. I think it'd be more effective to time a player irl throwing the ball of to home/if to first doing the stopwatch method like you did with base runners I may try this later but you in sure could do better than me.

ill play some games and let you know good work

[canes21]

I really like the way you put thought and reasoning into your numbers. My main concern, though, is home runs. With leaving your power so low, I feel the game would not see very many home runs. Are you seeing good HR totals even with your power sliders where they are?

I'd also like to say your videos did look really good. Like I said, my main concern is the HR totals. If they are good, it seems like you have a really solid set here.