FYI - ESPN

kevinpars · Post by **kevinpars** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:50 am

This has been reported at OS and other places, but just in case someone hasn't heard:

The expanded online ESPN Baseball manual in PDF format can be found here:

http://www.espnvideogames.com/manuals/

I already printed the 62 page opus for my reading pleasure. I sure wish that EA would start doing this as well.

One minor complaint about sliders. Sometimes it is not clear whether you need to turn up a slider or turn down a slider to achieve the desired effect. For example:

HUMAN_PITCHING_FATIGUE 0.50 1.0 2.0 50 50 50 50 Pitching Fatigue

Does turning it down to 1 mean that your pitcher will fatigue at half the rate that he will at the setting of 50 or that he will become fatigued in half the time it would take at a setting of 50? See what i mean. I wish that this was more clear - not just for this game but all slider games.

BTW, i think that you do turn this slider down to get more out of your pitcher. It was a 'cheat' I tried because I was wasting my pitchers in 5 innings by pumping up the effort on too many pitches. I instead learned to throw less meatballs and use less effort and now get 7+ innings from better starters.

Lockdown · Post by **Lockdown** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:26 am

I agree. Even more info. would be nice. Also, I think you're right in regards to pitcher fatigue and how it relates to the ESPN sliders.

On a somewhat related topic, are there websites out there that you can go to and see what the MLB averages were for this type of stuff?

Examples:

1) average innings pitched by a MLB starter in 2003

2) average pitches thrown by a MLB starter in 2003

3) average team ERA for a MLB team in 2003

4) average plate appearances for the MLB player in 2003

etc, etc...

I am sure this type of website exists somewhere, I just don't know where to look. And if any forum group would know, I would think it would be you guys.

Thanks in advance.

LD

Parker · Post by **Parker** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:33 am

I'm interested in calculating the ratio of homeruns to total runs scored in MLB the past several years to get an idea of how many runs are actually produced by the longball.

I think I may have gone a bit too far in my slider edits and now not enough runs are being produced via homeruns. On default, the game produces too many homeruns and not enough scoring via other methods.

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:49 am

I really suggest playing without the speed burst. It helps the CPU batters mount a better non-HR offense.

I played around with it on for a while, and I was getting to far too many balls, making it more of a bloop and a blast game.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:01 am

As far as stats are concerned, http://baseball-almanac.com/ is a very thorough site. It doesn't have many of those exact stats people are looking for, but if you don't mind doing a little calculating yourself this page will certainly have the raw data to work with.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:07 am

Parker,

I know exactly what you're referring to in regards to there being too many homeruns hit on the default level. The last two nights I've had games where the AI has hit 4 or more homeruns in a game against me. And that's the minimum. I'm kinda surprised nobody has mentioned this. It was quite frusturating and eventually is what stopped me from playing consecutive games last night. The AI was hitting pitches down in the strike zone, inside, outside, just about everywhere.

What slider did you change to decrease the amount of homeruns hit?

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:15 am

I thought the same thing about HRs at first, but I've noticed that those HR happy games come and go. I have not really messed with the hitting sliders and have had a number of games with no HRs. My actual HR production has been very low my last few games, as Sosa seems to be in a bit of a slump.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:26 am

I agree those homerun games come and go, but it's downright deflating when you give up 5 or so in a game. Especially when you're throwing a pretty tough low and outside pitch. I certainly enjoy the randomness of the games, but not neccessarily complete AI dominance every other game.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:29 am

Okay, so you guys piqued my curiousity, here some crude stat calculations I just did from 2003 (p/g stats are for both teams combined):

AL:

League Avg: .267
Hits p/g: 18.44
2b p/g: 3.67
hr p/g: 2.20
bb p/g: 6.36
so p/g: 12.16
sb p/g: 1.13
hr per run scored: .227
runs p/g: 9.72

NL:

League Avg: .262
Hits p/g: 17.86
2b p/g: 3.60
hr p/g: 2.09
bb p/g: 6.70
so p/g: 13.12
sb p/g: 1.00
hr per run scored: .227
runs p/g: 9.22

Does this jive with your ESPN experience?

As for Parker's question, the numbers indicate that there is roughly one homer hit for every 4 runs scored. If you make a VERY rough estimate to compensate for 2 and 3 run homers, you are maybe looking at about half of all runs being scored on a homerun play (big margin of error for that guess though--please correct me if something sounds wrong there).

fatheadX · Post by **fatheadX** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:53 am

That's nice, Naples. Thanks for the calculations, it's what I was looking for as well.

Your employer's getting their money's worth today!

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:21 pm

I was perusing the comprehensive manual pdf, and came across this:

"Offense - Stealing

Sometimes, you steal because it strategically benefits you to pit your fastest base runner against a mediocre catcher. Other times, you want to steal just to gun it against your friend to annoy him to no end. In either event, when you have baserunners on any of the bases, prior to the pitch, press the directional button in the direction of the base you’d like to steal.

Directional pad (up) - Queue up steal of 2 nd base
Directional pad (left)- Queue up steal of 3 rd base
Directional pad (right)- Queue up steal of 1 st base

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:59 pm

fatheadX wrote:Your employer's getting their money's worth today!

That's what happens when the boss has meetings all morning and is leaving for a conference in the afternoon. The sad part is I don't even own ESPN baseball yet, I'm just kind of doing it for the hell of it. Now back to blowing time by working on MLS rosters for WE7....

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 1:09 pm

Oh yeah, speaking of that (and completely OT) - Naples, I managed to convert your option file to work as a patch for WE7I-Japan. If anyone is interested let me know and I can send the files. Great work on the rosters, attributes and appearances - they looked dead on to me.

I've also tweaked the DC home kit somewhat now that we know what the shorts and socks look like. I'll try to mail that to you over the weekend.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 1:49 pm

sportdan30 wrote:I agree those homerun games come and go, but it's downright deflating when you give up 5 or so in a game. Especially when you're throwing a pretty tough low and outside pitch. I certainly enjoy the randomness of the games, but not neccessarily complete AI dominance every other game.

Know you know how Josh Fogg felt yesterday

I agree, and I have had my games of both jacking 5 and giving up 5 in a game. But lately I think I've been getting the hang of pitching more and giving up less.

But as always, your mileage may vary. If you tweak sliders and get good results, let us know.

I would say, without being at home and checking my season, that my results have been pretty close to the averages posted. Probably get a couple less walks overall and a couple more hits overall, but I'm definitely close to those averages.

Toper · Post by **Toper** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 2:59 pm

Blublub wrote:Oh yeah, speaking of that (and completely OT) - Naples, I managed to convert your option file to work as a patch for WE7I-Japan. If anyone is interested let me know and I can send the files. Great work on the rosters, attributes and appearances - they looked dead on to me.

I've also tweaked the DC home kit somewhat now that we know what the shorts and socks look like. I'll try to mail that to you over the weekend.

Blub,

Just wondering if you could send me the converted file for WE7I JPN if you get the chance. Looking forward to trying these out.

Thanks,

Toper