Game Balance at Higher EGO's needed.

[Tryshard]

I am currently playing at 63 EGO, I have been increasing my play with each level. So I'm level 63 playing at 63 ego. What I have noticed is that instead of the opponents just being better they also have an unfair advantage in the hitting zone. I have thrown 0-2 pitches a 1' outside and they are fooled and still hit a home run. If it happened only occasionally no problem, but everygame this happens. I still win but my 3-0 9th inning shutout is ruined by this sort of thing. If my team can't hit those pitches why should the AI.

[Morry]

I'd have to agree with the above posters who feel like there's a "beast mode". I'm playing at ego 80 and sometimes it feels like the computer just decides they're going to win the game. I think I pitch pretty consistently, but sometimes the computer just goes to town on me.

I might be 6 innings into the game, with the score at 2-1 or something, then all of a sudden I'm being hit all over the place. Even pitches outside the zone are effortlessly hit over the fence. Despite teddy's assurances to the contrary, I'm still not convinced that it's just random...

[Tryshard]

I've stopped playing the game now because of this. I'm too good for the lower EGO settings and the higher settings just don't allow for consistent gameplay. It's now to the point where every time I play, I rage quit the game. Don't need the frustration. Too bad, I really loved the game when I was learning it and its still worth buying. But if you don't like to randomly lose, don't play at the upper levels. In real life baseball stuff like this happens, just not as frequently as you will experience in this game.

[GetRoaring]

I still rather enjoy the game. I'm at Ego 91 now with level 90. I play the Moose with a pretty decently spec'd out pitching staff and a murder's row between 1 and 5. I can still win roughly 2/3 of my games and am about 40% through a long season. I'm hoping I will be able to be successful in the playoffs, currently I'm first in my division.

Hitting is much harder. I have to be really relaxed and patient in my hitting. If I don't then I just get in a bad cycle of strikeouts and hitting the ball to a position player. Some games I just can't get anything going, that just might be baseball.

I find with pitching it really feels like the opponents are either outs or home runs with a few decent hits tossed in there. I don't know if's perception or not. It always however amazes me the power that a low grade hitter can have. The big hitters I expect to be dangerous, but when a low level hitter smashes it out it's a little disappointing (Again, not that I haven't done it myself).

[DaChook_00]

Cmon devs! Please do something about it! All said here is true! Especially what Morry said there... "The game decides it has to win." That's how it feels. I don't mind losing... But getting trashed bc my players play like a bunch of donkeys on valium... Horrible! I keep track of my stats/ contracts, and still some games they refuse to pick up balls even if they where dead on the ground in front of em... Game keeps smashing balls through the middle, passing all guys refusing to stick out a glove...

High balls... Three players going for it... And ofc it drops on the ground bc, of the horrible autoswitch! Right before catching the game decides to autoswitch to another player somehow, and 3 players are making a nice dance around the ball.

High ball tending to go homerun... I climb the boarding... Slam, my player somehow gets bounced back into the field. Like 15 meters or something. By the time the ball is where it was supposed to be, the game has a nice in-the-park... Happened a few times.

Hitting the balls somehow gets really hard indeed. If the game swings at quite an extreme ball, it hits and gets a homerun, or at least some bases. If I swing at such balls... I never hit.

Revs seem drunk. Suddenly clear balls are called strikes and vice versa. Even a few balls that clearly dropped over the line were declared fair....

More stuff like this happening all the time... Maybe worst of all... The game even anticipated the 2nd throw of one game! Are ya joking me????

Shame shame shame, I would really love to play, but it got too annoying and frustrating!

[GetRoaring]

I'll agree with the autoswitch problem. There is something that can be done about that. Worst scenario is usually a ball between the pitcher, SS, and 3rd. you'll get a ball dribbling through there and autoswitch always seems to go to the player way to late. Especially at 90+ when basically players move like zombies unless you control them. There has to be a way to commit a player to the play.

Another small but useful thing is the pitcher going to first when the first baseman has made a play away from the base. I've had the pitcher just stop running toward the base and it was like "I was counting on you!"

As for my hitting, Some games I can hit, some I can't. I would imagine it's my problem but it still can be frustrating. Things I don't get as mentioned above is when playing the Sirloins I give up 2 dingers and a triple to like the worst player on the team. I get it if Hammer smacks one out of the park...that's his name! Low power hitters should be smacking dingers at a rarity. If they're taking me to town with singles all day long on bad pitches I get that too.

Then again 90+ is called "Impossible", so I guess that says something = )

[Morry]

Just rage quit and I think I'll be taking a break from this for a while.

Game 31 of a medium season at ego 80. Of the first 10 games I won 7 and won them comfortably. Of the last 10 I won 3. The top 3-4 teams were pretty close, so I was still in with a chance if I won my last two games.

After 5 innings we're tied at 3-3. My starter gets tired early for some reason so I replace him with my "emergency only" reliever (I normally throw my closer in). She pitches 2.1 innings for zero runs. She's getting tired and never had much in the way of accuracy anyway, so I bring in my star closer.

This guy has 100 accuracy, so I'm pretty good at throwing > 70 quality pitches. At the end of the 8th inning the score is 3-10. Not one of my pitches was below 50, but it didn't seem to matter, even a 92 on the edge of the plate was effortlessly hit over the fence.

So after being a good chance of making the finals the first time at ego 80 my season is over. This was my third season at ego 80 and after being 7-3 after the first ten I was sure I would make the finals, but as the season went on, the "beast mode" factor seemed to increase and I lost more and more often.

Might be time to play some chess or something.

[popoki]

This is all good information for us. There is definitely no beast-mode in the backend that would be causing this - but that doesn't mean it might not feel that way, so it's great for us to know. I'll make sure to add this to our discussion list.

[GetRoaring]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von popoki:

This is all good information for us. There is definitely no beast-mode in the backend that would be causing this - but that doesn't mean it might not feel that way, so it's great for us to know. I'll make sure to add this to our discussion list.

Playing at 91 ego still

I wonder if the element of "feeling that way" is due to a combination of the computer consistantly hitting the ball hard for 1 particular segment. I had 2 games with 2 completely different stories, one I won 11-2 and the other I lost 8-1, one right after the other. First was Wild Pigs, Second was Crocodons.

Note that Bishop Fuller was pitching and he was just owning me. His stats were really high.

The Crocs smashed up my starting pitcher in the first for a couple runs. The next bout they got 5 runs in about the 6th when the pitcher was getting tired. I replaced it with a decently spec'd very fresh replacement. That pitcher continued to get rocked. The innings in between were fine. I made some good defensive plays and held them to no runs. It was a 2-0 game for a while until my pitchers were a dumpster fire and I got that 5 run inning, then the game felt out of reach. I've come back in some instances but I just ran out of room with this game.

Some of the factors that seem strange are
1) Consistant hard hits (you hear the whooshing sound of a hard hit)
2) Hits like that by mostly the big htters but not restricted to them
3) Fresh pitchers getting rocked (Does this have something to do with fresh, high, velocity when the ball is hit?)

The other thing is that in baseball this stuff can happen, it's obviously not fun to be on the bad end of it but it does happen.

Anyway, just more feedback of my experience.

Regards,

Rorius

[Fiddle Gastro]

One thing I've always wondered is how much the pace of a pitch affects power hitters.

In cricket, if a batter is getting too much of a run by using the bowler's pace against them, it's a good tactical move to bring in a spinner at one end or even both. This forces the batter to place their hits etc.

In this game, does a fast pitch result in a higher level of power when good contact is made?

[GetRoaring]

Staff assortment at high levels has been a strange experience. I'm moving on to my 2nd season with my current team and I can't seem to get the right Gear/ Trainers for my pitching. I get TONS of coaching, but not much of the other two. For some reason the staff that show up always seem to be coaches, and have lots of accuracy for pitching. I need more velocity and junk. My position players need gear upgrades but again, I get to many coaches.

I'm not sure if this is one of those feel/ perspective things, it's just something I've noticed.

[popoki]

Well, the types of modifiers are not heavily weighted toward coaches. So it might just be your luck, or perspective... :-)

[GetRoaring]

It may be, I've had similar experiences in other categories, i.e I needed Accuracy for pitching and wasn't getting it. I'm just wondering if the newly acquired power ups based on leveling up would make that change in any specific direction.

None the less, i'm just reporting perception in case it leads to any kind of consistant trend.

[edesignspl]

Glad I'm not the only one to notice this "beast mode" suddenly showing up. It's ALWAYS when the computer is behind and normally at least 3-4 runs behind. Never happened when they're in the lead. Just like described, suddenly the computer can hit almost anything and everything to an empty part of the field or over the fence. Pitchers that were doing great suddenly can't get anything past the batters (this went on for over a full rotation at one point iirc). Mysteriously my fielders, who have rarely ever made errors, make them left and right whether it's easy infield flies, line drives, or even just simply picking the ball up off the ground.

I can't attribute that to "luck" or playing a bad inning. Not when it always happens when they're losing and it's like you're suddenly in Opposite Land because you don't even recognize the team you're controlling anymore. It really does ruin the game at times because it simply isn't random which causes the player to suspect the game is cheating whether it is or not.

Other than that I'm REALLY enjoying this game. Still trying to get consistent with controlling individual runners but I'm getting the hang of it. The controls are perfect, gameplay is usually very fun (except for the above issue but it's not consistent every time they start to lose), graphics are great, umpire voice variation is nice, in-game music works well...keep it up! Great job on this game