My views on the importance of detailed stat tracking

[g-burn]

This is going to be more of a rant than anything. I just want to know if there is anyone else out there who is bothered by the lack of detail SCE puts into the stat tracking for The Show. Stats are just as much a part of enjoying baseball as actually watching and playing it. So why are we only given the bare minimum stats?

The core of the Franchise experience is building a winning team from scratch while locating and cultivating talent. Franchise players, like myself, appreciate being able to look back and see a players past stats, like OPS, runs scored, k/bb, or stolen bases when building a team. They provide you with more intricate performance data than just player ratings. To me, player ratings are like scouting reports. Scouting reports should be used as more of a supplement than as the paramount factor in choosing a player. Real world GM's do make extensive use of scouting reports to build their teams, but they rely most heavily on statistical data when judging a player. Stats indicate what the player HAS done while scouting reports show what they CAN do. Both are essential and neither more so than the other. Because franchise players can really only rely on what amount to scouting reports, the experience of building a team is very much lacking in The Show.

Franchises can be played for decades (in game) and the experience just as much about the journey as it is about the result. Sometimes it's nice to have an in depth, historical record to look back on from time to time to see how far your players and team have come. I'd like to be able to look back at my previous player's 40/40 season or 60 double season every now and then. I feel like much of my hard work is erased at the conclusion of a season.

I hope they revamp stat tracking for the new PS4 generations. I've heard stat tracking can be a system hog and The Show doesn't keep many stats to improve performance. I don't really buy that. MVP baseball had fantastic stat tracking and that game is now 2 generations old. So please SCE, let's get it together and make MLB 14 The Show the most in depth Franchise experience yet and really beef up that stat tracking.

[Knight165]

I think we all agree that stat tracking is one of the weakest areas of The Show.
Comparing it to MVP or any other games stat tracking and saying "they can do it....so can SCEA" isn't exactly correct.

1. It is definitely legacy code and probably goes back to the first iteration of MLB 'XX. It may have been poorly coded at the time and that's why it is such a hog inasmuch as space(and saving from year to year....the amount of tracked data IN season is right up there with the best of them....so it's not tracked but saved....so you might have to "buy it")

2.To point to stats and say "they did it better" while disregarding the things The Show does better is only showing one side of the coin. SCEA started moving in one direction and has yet to change it's course. They hear us, but it's going to take rewriting a lot of that portion of the game to accommodate the PS4's capabilities.

With the amount of work for this first version(writing for all three consoles separately) and Ramone saying the feature sets are identical....I'm thinking '14 may not even see year to year stat tracking this time around.

When talking with Aaron, Luis and Lance last year.....they do have something in mind that is out of the norm in regards to this....but we'll have to see what shakes out with it.

I'd be happy.....for this year.....to just have the regular season stats carry over to the Post Season for viewing and being shown and talked about in playoff games.

BUT...at some point....yes......year to year tracking is a "must" IMO.

M.K.
Knight165

[dingleberryfinn]

As much as I love the numbers side of baseball, the Show does so many more things extremely well, I decided long ago I'd just have to give 'em a free pass on dropping the ball stat-wise.
But I totally expect the PS4 Show years to blow away anything else ever done in video game sport stat tracking.

[g-burn]

I didn't mean to take anything away from The Show as a whole. It's an absolutely beautiful game. Only FIFA compares to it as far as quality goes. I've given year to year stat tracking a pass since the PS2 days, though. Every year that goes by with out the improvement is like a festering wound that won't heal. I know it's irrational for me to be so hungup over this, but it's getting harder and harder for me to overlook it every year. Everytime I hear about a new game mode they are implementing, I can't help think that time and energy could have been better spent rewriting the stat tracking code. But I'm no programmer so I really have no idea how logical those thoughts are...

[nomo17k]

I'm not personally too frustrated by the lack of stats, but given that the vast majority of recent hardcore video baseball games have been appealing to stats nerds, missing that feature is not just undesirable for us gamers but also for the devs not taking advantage of one of more fascinating aspects of the sport. I can undestand the OP's frustration, but also understand where Knight's coming from.

However, if there is ever a good timing to "start" implementing deeper stats tracking system in The Show, I feel that this must be the starting year. Especially given that save file carryover is going to be possible, the devs must have thought really deeply about how to store all the game related information that are transferable (to enable carry over year to year) as well as extendable (to enable adding new features for new games).

This of course doesn't guarantee that we'll be seeing the benefit of the new data handling by The Show, but I would also not be surprised if we end up seeing a decent amount of improvement for the new year's game.

[Bobhead]

My frustration is more on the choice of stats given, and less on the depth of the tracking. There's a lot of common stats that are just inexplicably missing from the Statistics screens and Player's Card, like batting average against (for pitchers), just off the top of my head.

[Knight165]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bobhead

My frustration is more on the choice of stats given, and less on the depth of the tracking. There's a lot of common stats that are just inexplicably missing from the Statistics screens and Player's Card, like batting average against (for pitchers), just off the top of my head.

Do you mean the pitchers BA?
....because I'm fairly certain the BA against the pitcher as well as the L/R split AVG are on the player card.

M.K.
Knight165

[Bobhead]

Quote: Originally Posted by Knight165

Do you mean the pitchers BA? ....because I'm fairly certain the BA against the pitcher as well as the L/R split AVG are on the player card. M.K. Knight165

I'd never even thought to check the players card, since I figured that was only a small sample of stats. But I'm sure that it is not included in the Statistics screen, where you can compare all your pitchers at once, or even your overall BAA as a team, and as a user.