Range Factor 25

[wudl83]

Another thing I failed to mention which is off topic, is why didn't 2K put the effort into MLB2K12 that they did NBA2K14? NBA2K14 is a fantastic game. It replicates NBA basketball just like the real game. IMHO, it's the best sports simulation made, including Madden. The animations, presentation, jerseys, cyberfaces, sliders, courts, the whole nine yards. Then, there are a couple of sites where modders customize things on a game that doesn't need many. Is it different programmers or what? They shortchanged the baseball game big time. NBA2K14 is what MLB2K12 should have been.

Well, IMO the answer is quite easy. Compare how many copies 2k sells of NBA 2k to how many copies 2k sells (or sold) of MLB 2k.

Because MLB 2k traditionally sells much worse than NBA 2k, they did put their effort into NBA 2k.

They even put an end to NHL 2k in 2011. MLB 2k followed some time later. Thy simply didn't sell enough copies.

At least that's the reason I am thinking of.

[LouisvilleLipp]

Well, IMO the answer is quite easy. Compare how many copies 2k sells of NBA 2k to how many copies 2k sells (or sold) of MLB 2k.

Because MLB 2k traditionally sells much worse than NBA 2k, they did put their effort into NBA 2k.

They even put an end to NHL 2k in 2011. MLB 2k followed some time later. Thy simply didn't sell enough copies.

At least that's the reason I am thinking of.

Sounds logical enough to me. Thx.

[sask3m]

Great work going on here. Now try and find a pitchers hitting rating that will force the CPU to pinch hit for them when appropriate, although I would imagine that will be impossible.

[Griz891]

I think your best bet would be to upload a roster with the rating adjustments and the people that play MLB2k12 can give you some positive or negative feedback on what they think. Might be worth a try.

[DeadShot]

Since we are talking about fielding I have something to ask. Two things that bug me about MLB 2K12 are:

1) First baseman seems to be able to catch anything and pick anything from the dirt. Never do I see them fumbling a ball or misplaying it.

2) All fielders except for the first baseman seems to always throw in such a way that is difficult for the first baseman to catch to first. What I meant by that is that the shortstop, second baseman or third baseman always throw at the first baseman's feet even on an easy play. Even the second baseman, who is closest to the first baseman does that instead of throwing at chest level. Such a thing is very unrealistic in real world baseball.

So does this two things have to do with the fielder's stats or it is just something 2K purposefully meant it to be?

[wudl83]

Great work going on here. Now try and find a pitchers hitting rating that will force the CPU to pinch hit for them when appropriate, although I would imagine that will be impossible.

That's a 'bug' inside the game or something like miss-coded. You can't change that. The only thing that helps is to manage the CPUs lineup by yourself. Feel free to change the controller and go for it. I've done that anytime when I thought it would be time for it.

[wudl83]

I think your best bet would be to upload a roster with the rating adjustments and the people that play MLB2k12 can give you some positive or negative feedback on what they think. Might be worth a try.

Maybe I could do it at the weekend. Right now I am busy as hell.

[wudl83]

Since we are talking about fielding I have something to ask. Two things that bug me about MLB 2K12 are:

1) First baseman seems to be able to catch anything and pick anything from the dirt. Never do I see them fumbling a ball or misplaying it.

2) All fielders except for the first baseman seems to always throw in such a way that is difficult for the first baseman to catch to first. What I meant by that is that the shortstop, second baseman or third baseman always throw at the first baseman's feet even on an easy play. Even the second baseman, who is closest to the first baseman does that instead of throwing at chest level. Such a thing is very unrealistic in real world baseball.

So does this two things have to do with the fielder's stats or it is just something 2K purposefully meant it to be?

1) As far as I can tell there's not much to do about it and t I found no method to correct that. But with range rating at 25 the 1Bs should have a harder time at least.

2) To be honest I do not see this when playing the game. It occassionally happens to me, but not in the majority of possible situations.

1) can be changed a little bit with rating/slider changes, but 2) I don't know.

[wudl83]

Didn't have the time to do enough testings over the last few days. Gonna finish work for this week within a few hours. Then I'll have a big part of the weekend to play around with rating edits and sliders.

The original ideas for blocking at 99 and anticipation at 25 came up at operationsports. Yesterday I looked at their board and noticed that they had found that giving all fielders an acceleration rating of 99 does help the game even more. I am really looking forward to trying this out. The new animations which I did see in some videos on youtube looked so smooth and fine.

Besides that I think that I am growing more and more into the game mechanics or that I come closer and closer to the real meaning of sliders or ratings.

I don't know if that was all intended by 2k and as I said a lot of times, it sometimes makes me shake my head, but somehow some sliders may have the wrong name.

[LouisvilleLipp]

Didn't have the time to do enough testings over the last few days. Gonna finish work for this week within a few hours. Then I'll have a big part of the weekend to play around with rating edits and sliders.

The original ideas for blocking at 99 and anticipation at 25 came up at operationsports. Yesterday I looked at their board and noticed that they had found that giving all fielders an acceleration rating of 99 does help the game even more. I am really looking forward to trying this out. The new animations which I did see in some videos on youtube looked so smooth and fine.

Besides that I think that I am growing more and more into the game mechanics or that I come closer and closer to the real meaning of sliders or ratings.

I don't know if that was all intended by 2k and as I said a lot of times, it sometimes makes me shake my head, but somehow some sliders may have the wrong name.

Great !! Can't wait to hear what you come up with.

[wudl83]

I only played some games in which I pitched for both teams and made the fielding manually. Base running and hitting was done by the CPU. I want to focus on different parts at different times so that I don't have to concentrate on too many things at one time. One step after another.

1st Observation: Pitch types, pitch speed matter

I wasn't directly looking at this but playing a few games I noticed, that pitch types do matter much more than I previously thoght.

As you know we have 3 different changeups in the game. If they are all rated equally (same movement, control, speed) then the conventional changeup is by far the worst, while the split change and the circle change give you much better chances for getting a hitter out or not allowing a hit.

And you can apply that to nearly all other pitch types.

Also you can say that the higher the speed of a pitch the higher the chance for a strike or the hitter not getting contact. This seems to be true for all pitch types. The AI will hit a slider of Romo better when his slider is rated 90 than a slider of someone else which is rated 80, only because Romo's slider has a max speed of 81 when the other guy's slider has a speed of 87. This seems again to be true for all pitch types.

And additionally everything below a pitcher control slider rating of 30 or 35 seems to produce bad pitches, meaning that you won't be able to hit your spots well although your control rating of a certain pitch may be high.

2nd Observation: Range Rating 50

I played around a little bit and I think that the range rating at 25 was indeed a little bit too low. After a few games I realized that BSU-Fan was right with saying that there are too many routine groundballs and stuff like that won't be caught. Right now I am testing a range rating of 50 for all fielders and it plays out better. Everything else seems to be to high and produces too many dives. But 50 (or maybe 40) seems to be something like a sweet spot. It's not too much and not too little.

3rd Observation: Acceleration 99

The acceleration rating regulates how quick a fielder acts. This is true for fielding and running. What does this mean in detail?

First, the combination of an acc. rating of 99 with a low range rating produces smoother fielding animations. As I said in an earlier post, imagine range rating as a circle. If the ball crosses the outer line of the circle, the player starts to act. So the higher his range rating, the earlier the player reacts. The consequence is that guys with high range make a ton of diving plays. So we have to reduce the fielding range rating. But when we reduce it too much the players (only certain positions) let balls pass too often without doing anything. Setting range to 50 (see above) could be a method to adjust this. Now the acceleration rating is another 'boost' rating. It has not much to do with diving plays, but seems to determine on how quick a player reacts after the ball has passed his 'range' circle. It produces smoother fielding animations and seems to help against guys not acting when the ball is hit right next to them. Guys still start only start 'trying hard' when the ball crosses the circle, but with an acc rating of 99 they start to act faster. Because they do this, they don't have to dive too often.

Second, regarding running, the acceleration rating is the rating which determines how quick a player is at his full running speed. With a little bit adjusted sliders (this is necessary when giving everyone a 99 acceleration rating) it produces smoother running animations.

4th Observation: Giving up hits has a lot of variables

To find the right balance regarding pitching against the AI seems to be one heck of a job. There are a ton of variables which come into play.

First, I noticed that the power slider of the AI (and so I think this applies to the user slider as well, although I haven't tested it until now) does not only regulate how hard a ball is hit. It also determines the likelihood of players hitting the pitch with the top of barrell of the bat. And as you all know, if you hit the ball with the top of the barrell your chances of getting a hit become better. So the higher the AI's power rating, the higher the likelihood of the AI getting a hit.

Second, the contact slider has not as much influence as the power rating. The contact rating is more of a indicator of 1) how good a hitter sees the ball (the lower the slider, the higher the chance of batters swinging at crap and therefore the higher chance for strikeouts) and 2) it seems to be something which indicates the 'pop' of the bat, meaning that the higher the contact slider, the higher the chance that the pitches will be hit up in the air (less grounders).

Third, clutch rating of hitters seems to determine the likelihood of hits as well. But only when runners are already on base. The higher the clutch rating of a certain player who has to bat with runners on base, the higher the chance of him getting a hit and driving runners in. It seems like the contact or power rating of batters do not have that a big of importance when they have runners on base as the clutch rating. With a high clutch rating a player is very likely to get an RBI although his batting ratings are bad.

Fourth, the pitch speed slider is more of an animation rating, but also determines how hard a ball will be hit. You won't get much more Ks with a pitch speed slider rating of 100 compared to one with 75. But the balls will be hit a little bit harder (travel faster and further).

Fifth, the pitch break slider seems to work like an animation rating (the ball will break heavier if the slider is set higher) and it seems to have the same meaning as the contact hitting slider, but to a lesser degree.

Sixth, the higher the composure influence, the worse your chances of getting hitters out with runners on base. Even if you spot your pitches well, the AI seems to get miracle hits when the composure influence is set too high.

Now see: high clutch rating of upcoming batters, runners already on base, high composure influence and you know what will happen. Hit after hit after hit and therefore you will see 13-14 hits per team if those things are set to high.

Right now I am experimenting with the following combination regarding hitting/pitching:

- fairly low contact slider of the CPU (about 50-55)

- medicore hitting power slider of the CPU (about 70-75)

- high pitch speed for users (90-100)

- high pitch break for users (90-100)

- low composure influence for users (15-20)

- low to mediocre pitcher control for users (30-35)

I am already quite fine with fielding and CPU baserunning. I gonna come up with sliders for this:

- user ('u') throw acc 30

- u gather error 50

- u throw error 55

- u outfield throw 60

- u infield throw 25

- u outfield run 40 (that's because of the low range rating)

- u infield run 30 (same)

And AI baserunning:

- AI base speed 30 (that's because of acc 99, players have their full speed within a fraction of a second)

- hit n run 70

- sac bunt 70 (may drive this up a noth, everything below 70 seems to produce not enough sac bunts from batters who are no pitchers)

- squeeze 85 (may drive this up, too, still not seeing enough)

- base run aggression 70

- steal aggression 50 (may drive this up to 55, base running and steal aggression seem both to have influence on the likelihood of a runner attempting a steel)

These are my first observations. I will do more tests today (right now it's 11 o'clock AM here in Germany) and tell you what I've found out.

[aceshigh]

First, I noticed that the power slider of the AI (and so I think this applies to the user slider as well, although I haven't tested it until now) does not only regulate how hard a ball is hit. It also determines the likelihood of players hitting the pitch with the top of barrell of the bat. And as you all know, if you hit the ball with the top of the barrell your chances of getting a hit become better. So the higher the AI's power rating, the higher the likelihood of the AI getting a hit.

Second, the contact slider has not as much influence as the power rating. The contact rating is more of a indicator of 1) how good a hitter sees the ball (the lower the slider, the higher the chance of batters swinging at crap and therefore the higher chance for strikeouts) and 2) it seems to be something which indicates the 'pop' of the bat, meaning that the higher the contact slider, the higher the chance that the pitches will be hit up in the air (less grounders).

[...]

Fourth, the pitch speed slider is more of an animation rating, but also determines how hard a ball will be hit. You won't get much more Ks with a pitch speed slider rating of 100 compared to one with 75. But the balls will be hit a little bit harder (travel faster and further).

Fifth, the pitch break slider seems to work like an animation rating (the ball will break heavier if the slider is set higher) and it seems to have the same meaning as the contact hitting slider, but to a lesser degree.

This is great stuff, once again! I will second points 4 and 5, about the pitch speed and break sliders, as I have experienced this also. These values are mainly for the animation as they won't really make the game any more difficult for the CPU when it is batting. They will however influence greatly on the game difficulty when the user is batting (obviously, afterall we're just humans ).

As far as the contact and power sliders go, do you think there is any way we could tweak those so the number of foul ball increases? I don't see many of those, even though I see way more than what I used to see in 2K11... I rarely get an at-bat of over 5/6 pitches and I get plenty of 1-pitch ABs.

[wudl83]

Okay, may be that my observations aren't bogus when you noticed it too.

Regarding foul balls, I do see the same as you. The majority of outs/hits comes within pitch 2-3, then a high number of hits/outs comes on the first pitch and I rarely see high pitch count ABs.

Maybe we can adjust this via the contact slider and the batting eye rating of the player. Have not looked enough into for a clear statement.

[aceshigh]

I only see high pitch counts when I throw a lot of balls, but I rarely see batters fighting off pitches on a 3-2 count. It DOES happen, just not often enough. Sometimes I won't even get close to a 3 balls count because the batter will chase everything, missing.

Speaking of the pitch speed, I remember reading on the OS forums someone saying that they increased the pitch speed on their sliders so that catchers could have a better chance of nailing a runner stealing second/third base. Just throwing it out there, not really sure if it makes any difference or not. I usually play with baserunners' speed at 45, pitch speed at 85, with cather's arm strenght at 55 or 50, I don't remember exactly, and I seem to be fine, even tho, I still can't stop a few selected runners, no matter how hard I try

[wudl83]

For tests I upped the CPU contact slider to 80 and put the power down to 50. With pitch speed between 90-100 and break between 90-100 as well as control of 25-30 you can produce higher pitch counts.

You have to do the following:

- let your pitcher select pitch type

- do not follow his suggested location to a t, but always try to paint the corners and try to throw pitches like in reality (no 2-seamers up in the zone, but down in the zone, not curves up in the zone, but aim them dropping slightly out of the zone, try to throw sliders breaking out of the zone

- look at the sweet spots and bad spots of the opposing hitter

- throw some balls on purpose, they do it in reality, too

- if the opposing hitter is weak, try to throw a lot of clear strikes (not much danger), if the opposing hitter is good try to throw only marginal strikes (lots of danger)

In my last 2 games I was able to average about 15-17 pitches per inning with this method. Can't think of anything else.

Your hint with pitch speed/stolen bases makes definately sense. Never looked at it from this point of view.

[aceshigh]

For tests I upped the CPU contact slider to 80 and put the power down to 50. With pitch speed between 90-100 and break between 90-100 as well as control of 25-30 you can produce higher pitch counts.

You have to do the following:

- let your pitcher select pitch type

- do not follow his suggested location to a t, but always try to paint the corners and try to throw pitches like in reality (no 2-seamers up in the zone, but down in the zone, not curves up in the zone, but aim them dropping slightly out of the zone, try to throw sliders breaking out of the zone

- look at the sweet spots and bad spots of the opposing hitter

- throw some balls on purpose, they do it in reality, too

- if the opposing hitter is weak, try to throw a lot of clear strikes (not much danger), if the opposing hitter is good try to throw only marginal strikes (lots of danger)

In my last 2 games I was able to average about 15-17 pitches per inning with this method. Can't think of anything else.

Your hint with pitch speed/stolen bases makes definately sense. Never looked at it from this point of view.

wow, pitching speed around 90-100? I hope that's just for user pitching and not CPU pitching. I could barely keep up with the ball at 90, that's why I stepped it down to 85 (for both, CPU and user pitching, I like the game to look fair and even). Also, about breaking balls left up in the zone, have you noticed if hitters hit them or not? The opposing hitters in my franchise have a really hard time hitting those and I think that's a tad bit unrealistic.

[wudl83]

Right now that's only user pitching, yes. As I said I am mainly testing user pitching and fielding and AI hitting and baserunning.

Breaking balls in the zone are indeed not hit well. In fact they are hit really bad. That is unrealistic, as you said. But that's something we can't do anything about. So I would advise to try to pitch as realisticly as possible.

[Griz891]

I've always had pitching speed set to 100 but have gotten use to it. You see lots of HR's and you also hit alot of HR's but fielders don't react quite as quick at that pitch speed.

[wudl83]

But to hit a lot of HRs you also have to adjust the hitting sliders. If the hitting sliders are at a low rating you won't see a ton of HRs, even when the pitch speed is at 100.

[wudl83]

Hey guys. It's weekend and so it's MLB 2k12 time.

I've played around with ratings and sliders again. I am back at setting the range rating to 'normal' levels. Now the players have range ratings between 50 and 80. Together with an acceleration rating of 99 for every player and the 'correct' sliders it seems to play out quite well.

This was my last game:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
ARI	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	9	1
SDP	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	1	x	4	8	0
	W: Cashner	L: Miley	S: Benoit							

Player	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO
Inciar.	3	0	0	0	1	0
Pollock	4	1	2	0	0	1
Lamb	3	1	1	0	1	1
a-Ahmed	0	0	0	0	0	0
Trumbo	4	0	0	0	0	1
Peralta	4	0	2	2	0	0
Montero	4	0	2	0	0	2
Owings	4	0	0	0	0	1
Gregor.	3	0	0	0	0	1
Miley	2	0	1	0	0	0
b-Penn.	1	0	1	0	0	0
Totals	32	2	9	2	2	7
a-Ahmed (PR)
b-Pennington (PH)

BATTING
3B: Peralta (Cashner)

FIELDING
E: Trumbo (Throw)

BASERUNNING
CS: Inciarte (Cashner/Rivera), Pollock (Cashner/Rivera)

Player	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO
Maybin	4	1	1	0	0	1
Solarte	4	0	2	0	0	0
Gyorko	4	0	0	0	0	2
Medica	4	2	2	2	0	0
Rivera	4	0	1	0	0	0
Grandal	4	0	1	0	0	1
Liriano	3	1	0	0	0	1
Amaris.	3	0	1	2	0	1
Cashner	3	0	0	0	0	1
Totals	33	4	8	4	0	7

BATTING
2B: Grandal (Miley)
HR: Medica (Miley)

BASERUNNING
SB: Liriano

Pitcher	        IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR
Miley (L)	7.0	5	3	1	0	5	1
De La Rosa	0.0	2	1	1	0	0	0
Marshall	1.0	1	0	0	0	2	0
							
Pitcher	        IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR
Cashner (W)	7.0	5	2	2	2	7	0
Quackenbush (H)	1.0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Benoit (S)	1.0	3	0	0	0	0	0

Pitches-Strikes: Miley 89-66, De La Rosa 8-6, Marshall 16-10, Cashner 72-49, Quackenbush 11-10, Benoit 11-7
Groundouts-Flyouts: Miley 8-3, De La Rosa 0-0, Marshall 0-1, Cashner 6-4, Quackenbush 2-1, Benoit 1-0

As I did all the last games, I pitched and fielded for both teams. Hitting and baserunning was done by the CPU. I think the results are really good. I made a few mistakes pitching wise (that's why I gave up 3 singles with Benoit, I ended the game with a DP), but aside from that it was a major improvement compared to previous 2k12 experiences. If I wouldn't have missused my controller I probably would have held the Dbacks to 5 or 6 hits, which is quite realistic considering that I had an ace on the mound with Cashner.

s you can see there were a lot of groundouts, which IMO is quite realistic for two weak hitting teams like the Padres and Dbacks (I used their best available and healthy players).

Thoughts?

[wudl83]

I played a few more games and I am more or less satisfied with user pitching, user fielding, CPU baserunning and CPU hitting.

There are still some awkward situations which can't be controlled as I would like to. E.g. relievers seem to have a hard time too often when you have a lead and bring in a setup man for a hold or the closer for the save. Too often it seems like it doesn't matter if you bring in a good reliever against bad hitters or not, or if you bring in a loogy against a lefthanded hitter or not. If the CPU wants to get a hit, it will get a hit. Maybe it has to do with clutch ratings, but I have not tested this rating enough to make final statements.

I have played all of my games with the Dodgers, Giants, Dbacks and Padres. The hits per team per game are about at 8-10, the errors slightly below 1, the runs at about 4, homeruns slightly below 1 and stolen bases at about 1. Additionally, I averaged about 8 Ks per team per game, walked about 3 guys, made slightly less than 1 wild pitch (my last game was won by a wild pitch in the ninth) and about 130-135 pitches.

[DaSteelerz]

I played a few more games and I am more or less satisfied with user pitching, user fielding, CPU baserunning and CPU hitting.

There are still some awkward situations which can't be controlled as I would like to. E.g. relievers seem to have a hard time too often when you have a lead and bring in a setup man for a hold or the closer for the save. Too often it seems like it doesn't matter if you bring in a good reliever against bad hitters or not, or if you bring in a loogy against a lefthanded hitter or not. If the CPU wants to get a hit, it will get a hit. Maybe it has to do with clutch ratings, but I have not tested this rating enough to make final statements.

I have played all of my games with the Dodgers, Giants, Dbacks and Padres. The hits per team per game are about at 8-10, the errors slightly below 1, the runs at about 4, homeruns slightly below 1 and stolen bases at about 1. Additionally, I averaged about 8 Ks per team per game, walked about 3 guys, made slightly less than 1 wild pitch (my last game was won by a wild pitch in the ninth) and about 130-135 pitches.

Hey man I wanna say thanks for putting the effort into making a better game. Your findings are truly interesting and I'm excited to see all the results. I'm keeping my eye on this thread!

[wudl83]

You're welcome. I hope I'll find the time today to do further testing. Gonna plan on looking at the clutch rating. After that I will switch to user hitting and CPU pitching. Then it's 'done'.

Additionally, I have set up something like a rating calculator which helps me to adjust the player ratings in the right way compared to reality.

[wudl83]

Okay I think I am done with:

- user pitching

- cpu hitting

- user fielding

- cpu baserunning

My last two games were with the Giants against the Pirates (as always pitching and fielding for both teams). Results were good, although looking a little bit too heavy at first glance. Of course all players had adjusted ratings.

First game:

SF 9 - PIT 1

Second game:

SF 1 - PIT 5

Hits were a little bit high but that was because of the composure influence slider being set a little bit too high and a ton of bloopers by SF in game 1.

In the first game I pitched a complete game with Bumgarner giving up only 4 hits and 0 walks. PIT on the other hand got a good performance by Volquez over 5 innings, but he had struggled in the third in which he gave up 5 runs (3 runs by a HR by Sandoval with 2 men on). His 4 other innings were strong. In the 8th with the score 5-1 for SF I brought in Axford and I struggled with control (funny, like in reality). After two walks and two hits I had to get him out, the score was 7-1 there with 2 runners on base. The next pitcher I brought in was Hughes I guess and he gave up a double in his first AB. Two more runs scored and that was it. Nothing more happened. 9-1 SF.

In the second game, again with Mad Bum and Volquez, Volquez didn't struggle in one single inning, he got 6 innings without allowing a run. Mad Bum was worse than in the first game, but not bad. He gave up 2 runs (1 in the first, 1 in the third), gave up 6 hits and walked two. In the 7th I brought in Romo because the top of the lineup of PIT was coming up and all of them are righties. After a quick K of Harrison, Mercer singled, McCutchen doubled him home. Then McCutchen stole third and Martin singled him home. I took out Romo and brought in Strickland. On a wild pitch Martin advanced to second. I then struck out the next batter, before Neil Walker singled home Martin. In the 9th the Giants (then only having 4 singles over the whole game) started strong, as Gregor Blanco tripled on a 2-seamer of Hughes. Panik singled him home. Posey grounded out, Pence struck out and Sandoval popped out. That was the ball game.

What I can say is that there is a lot of randomness inside the game which seems to decide pregame if you will have trouble or an easy evening. There is no other explanation on why there were two totally different ballgames with the same pitchers and batters under the same circumstances, since I made no pitching mistakes or something like that. While the Giants, as I said, had a lot of bloopers in the first game, they blooped again in the second, but those were more like popups which didn't get out of the infield.

[wudl83]

I think I got it. Two or three more games with testing hitting and then that's it. Don't be surprised by the low pitch count for SF. That was my fault because I wasn't patient enough.