Does anyone turn variable umpire off??

[nyr]

I have been thinking of doing this for awhile now because I feel it may increase my walk total. As of now I get anywhere from 2-4 walks per game which is fine I guess, but it really seems I could get more if I turned this feature off since it seems to hurt me more than it ever helps. Curious if anyone does this and what your results are like. Cheers,

[AUTiger1]

I turned it off because I got tired of throwing strikes that kept getting called balls.

[Scrapps]

I leave it on. Although, it does frustate the stuff out of me sometimes. While it can be very unpredictable, I write it off to human (animated) error.

[37]

I leave it on....although some strikes are blatantly balls and vice versa, it's nice experiencing different strike zones and having to adapt to each umpire like IRL

[dalger21]

I've been tempted to turn this off but probably won't. The strike zone is so jacked up that I don't think it would matter if it was on or off tbh.

[Redacted01]

I keep variable on and once I start a franchise, I will pay more attention to who is calling the game and pitch accordingly. More realistic to me. Umpires in real life miss calls and every umpire does not have the same strike zone, let alone a perfect one.

[chrishthomas]

I played an entire season of '11 with it ON, and despite repeated frustration continued to leave it on. I am okay with the variability, but it felt like (i.e., my perception which isn't necessarily reality) the vast majority of bad calls went against me. The close balls that were sometimes called strikes didn't bother me nearly as much as the clear strikes that were called balls at horrible times (3-2 counts, or with 2 out in an inning and almost working myself out of a jam, etc.)

I'm sure it isn't programmed to favor CPU versus human, but the CPU does a much better job than I at letting extremely close pitches go by. When I'm protecting the plate, I have trouble ignoring borderline pitches - had I let more of these go, then I may have benefited from blown calls as much as the CPU - but even though I think I have a decent eye for balls and strikes, it clearly isn't as refined as the precise digital/virtual eye the CPU possess, and thus I saw more of these occur when I was pitching than when I was hitting. What's more, so many of those blown calls seemed (again perception) to go against me at crucial points in the game.

So, in my current season in '12 I have turned this feature off, and I am enjoying the game more. I think what other people may be interested to know, is that through 44 games of my new season what I have noticed is that there is still some variability in calls. Pitches that are clearly balls are always called balls, likewise pitches that are clearly strikes are always called strikes. However, on borderline pitches where varying amounts of the ball touch the strike zone, I have noticed that some are called balls some strikes. It's just enough variation that I can live with.

I miss having the individual umpires calling different zones, but there doesn't seem to be a setting whereby they would each perfectly call their own preferred zones.

[porkys8077]

I keep it on.