Coming up on DSP: Comments from MVP team on lefty bug + more

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:55 pm

Jared = Sportsguy? Interesting indeed.

LOL...just playin' J.

Post by **Jared** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:40 pm

I don't know if it'll be posted today or tomorrow. It depends on a variety of factors...but as soon as I can put it up, I will.

And I'm not Sportsguy. However, I will not say if I'm Superior Man or not.

I mean, Superior Man will not say if Superior Man is Superior Man or not.

Post by **Jared** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:06 pm

Piece going up in the next hour or so.....

Kccitystar · Post by **Kccitystar** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:35 pm

this must rule.

Post by **Jared** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:51 pm

http://www.digitalsportspage.com/module ... le&sid=276

Sudz · Post by **Sudz** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:59 pm

Jared wrote:http://www.digitalsportspage.com/module ... le&sid=276

great work, jared.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:00 pm

Lets see,

- Theres no lefty problem, but they are going to fix it.
- Theres no walks issue according to him (which is bs as we all know)
- They are looking at steals.
- No mention of the roster bug carrying 15 pitchers
- No mention of the player progression bug.

Well kudos to you for getting any info out of the tight liped EA. I'm surprised they admitted anything. Looks like it is time to shelve the game and concentrate fully on ESPN, too bad I really liked MVP.

Post by **Jared** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:24 pm

Danimal wrote:Lets see,

- Theres no lefty problem, but they are going to fix it.
- Theres no walks issue according to him (which is bs as we all know)
- They are looking at steals.
- No mention of the roster bug carrying 15 pitchers
- No mention of the player progression bug.

Well, I don't agree that what you've said is an accurate characterization of what Brent Nielsen said.

He did mention that there was a minor physics flaw that causes the lefty problem. We may disagree that it's minor, and we may disagree in the way he may have characterized it...but he did admit to it.

He also never said that there was no walks issue. He said it's a difficult thing to figure out (which is true) and they're working on it. Nothing wrong with that.

He didn't mention the 15 man bug because I didn't ask him about it. I only had a limited amount of time with him and I forgot to ask him about that. It's my fault for not asking, not his fault for not reading my mind and knowing that I should ask about that.

It's not like we talked and he said "Here are the problems with the game, and this is what we're doing." I asked him questions, and he answered them.

As for player progression, they're looking at it. I didn't include this in the piece though.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:45 pm

Great job. Thanks Jared!

Airdog · Post by **Airdog** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:56 pm

Even though it's not a game or genre that I'm particularly passionate about, your piece is very good. It's awesome to see an interview that isn't a rehashed press release. Much kudos to Jared and DSP for having an interview based on real facts and having a developer own up to their mistakes. Once again, great work.

abrams99 · Post by **abrams99** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 12:24 am

thanks, Jared. Great scoop -- I've got a new sports video game home!

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 1:36 am

Jared wrote:
Danimal wrote:Lets see,

- Theres no lefty problem, but they are going to fix it.
- Theres no walks issue according to him (which is bs as we all know)
- They are looking at steals.
- No mention of the roster bug carrying 15 pitchers
- No mention of the player progression bug.
Well, I don't agree that what you've said is an accurate characterization of what Brent Nielsen said.

He did mention that there was a minor physics flaw that causes the lefty problem. We may disagree that it's minor, and we may disagree in the way he may have characterized it...but he did admit to it.

He also never said that there was no walks issue. He said it's a difficult thing to figure out (which is true) and they're working on it. Nothing wrong with that.

He didn't mention the 15 man bug because I didn't ask him about it. I only had a limited amount of time with him and I forgot to ask him about that. It's my fault for not asking, not his fault for not reading my mind and knowing that I should ask about that.

It's not like we talked and he said "Here are the problems with the game, and this is what we're doing." I asked him questions, and he answered them.

As for player progression, they're looking at it. I didn't include this in the piece though.

Look no offence intended, but lets look at a few of the things he said. He said there was a minor physics flaw but then said :

"it is just as easy to hit home runs with left-handed hitters as it is with right-handed hitters"

Do you agree with that statement? Does anybody? That's what I call doublespeak.

As for walks being hard to balance. I can totally agree with that, but there are literaly no walks in MVP. There is no way it's a balance issue, because you would have to have walks to be able to balance in the first place.

If you can stomach it, play two games, don't swing at any pitches and tell me how many walks you draw. If you draw more than 2 walks combined in those two games I wll be amazed. Also in your article it says they are collecting data, which doesn't mean they are working on it, unless he said more than you wrote.

Again no offence intended, you asked what you did and got some anwsers. I just have a hard time with his replies, not because they are not what I want to hear. But because I honestly not sure if EA even considers some of these items problems. MVP is one good patch away from being the best damm baseball game I have ever played, but based on some of those responses, I'm not even sure we will see that promise reached in MVP2005.

JasonC · Post by **JasonC** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 6:58 am

One factor to consider with walking is foul balls. You can sit and watch the CPU throw you many strikes, that is for sure. But in real life, most walks are earned through foul balls. In real life, good hitters draw walks by fouling off the marginal strikes and taking the balls. I, however, do not have the skillz required to do this in MVP Baseball.

That being said, I still don't think that the CPU throws enough balls and that will be mentioned in my review. I've not tried it on MVP level as I have enough trouble on All-Star, but I will give it a shot just to be fair to EA.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 8:31 am

Great job, and really somewhat of a coup to have EA finally admit that there is any sort of problem. Did you happen to ask him about the dynasty progression and 15 pitcher roster issues?

brendanrfoley · Post by **brendanrfoley** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 10:19 am

Danimal wrote: As for walks being hard to balance. I can totally agree with that, but there are literaly no walks in MVP. There is no way it's a balance issue, because you would have to have walks to be able to balance in the first place.

If you can stomach it, play two games, don't swing at any pitches and tell me how many walks you draw. If you draw more than 2 walks combined in those two games I wll be amazed. Also in your article it says they are collecting data, which doesn't mean they are working on it, unless he said more than you wrote.

Again no offence intended, you asked what you did and got some anwsers. I just have a hard time with his replies, not because they are not what I want to hear. But because I honestly not sure if EA even considers some of these items problems. MVP is one good patch away from being the best damm baseball game I have ever played, but based on some of those responses, I'm not even sure we will see that promise reached in MVP2005.

Two quickies. I know there is a relative lack of walks in MVP, but I still manage to draw roughly 3 per game. So they are in there. If you play with JRod's house rules, you''ll walk batter as well.

Second of all, the "don't swing at any pitches" test is bogus. Tell me - if you were a pitcher and the other team wasn't swinging at all, wouldn't you just pipe it?

MVP throws balls if you have a tendency to chase bad pitches. If you start taking too many pitches, they throw more strikes as would a real pitcher.

I'm not saying there's no problem, but it isn't as bad as your post makes out.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:24 pm

brendanrfoley wrote:
Danimal wrote: As for walks being hard to balance. I can totally agree with that, but there are literaly no walks in MVP. There is no way it's a balance issue, because you would have to have walks to be able to balance in the first place.

If you can stomach it, play two games, don't swing at any pitches and tell me how many walks you draw. If you draw more than 2 walks combined in those two games I wll be amazed. Also in your article it says they are collecting data, which doesn't mean they are working on it, unless he said more than you wrote.

Again no offence intended, you asked what you did and got some anwsers. I just have a hard time with his replies, not because they are not what I want to hear. But because I honestly not sure if EA even considers some of these items problems. MVP is one good patch away from being the best damm baseball game I have ever played, but based on some of those responses, I'm not even sure we will see that promise reached in MVP2005.
Two quickies. I know there is a relative lack of walks in MVP, but I still manage to draw roughly 3 per game. So they are in there. If you play with JRod's house rules, you''ll walk batter as well.

Second of all, the "don't swing at any pitches" test is bogus. Tell me - if you were a pitcher and the other team wasn't swinging at all, wouldn't you just pipe it?

MVP throws balls if you have a tendency to chase bad pitches. If you start taking too many pitches, they throw more strikes as would a real pitcher.

I'm not saying there's no problem, but it isn't as bad as your post makes out.

I've played about 56 games in MVP franchise, I have drawn one walk!

I've played about 15 games of ESPN, I draw 3-4 walks per game.

I play both games the same way, it is not like my eye is better in ESPN. I'm sorry there is a significant walk problem as far as I am concerned.

Plus calling my test "bogus" is not entirely true. Sure a real human would throw strikes all day if you just stood there. Not only do I have a hard time believing the AI in this game (or any game) is smart enough to recognize that. I have done said test and the AI through just as many balls as a real game. Many time throwing 2 or 3 balls then following up with strikes.

Maybe I am wrong an the AI can react to that, but I just don't see it. I assume the AI is programmed to work the batter and there is a variance for throwing a bad pitch.

Post by **Jared** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:37 pm

Blublub wrote:Great job, and really somewhat of a coup to have EA finally admit that there is any sort of problem. Did you happen to ask him about the dynasty progression and 15 pitcher roster issues?

Unfortunately, I had a limited amount of time and forgot to ask about 15 pitcher rosters (that's completely my fault). I did ask him about dynasty progression...but it was near the end of the interview and his answer was somewhat unclear (or more likely, I couldn't understand it). I didn't want to make things more confusing, so I omitted it from the piece.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:41 pm

Jared:

Great job. You handled this entire interview and publication process really, really well. Really good read.

Props!

Take care,
PK

Post by **Jared** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:48 pm

Danimal wrote:
Look no offence intended, but lets look at a few of the things he said. He said there was a minor physics flaw but then said :

No offence taken. We enjoy debate here.

"it is just as easy to hit home runs with left-handed hitters as it is with right-handed hitters"

Do you agree with that statement? Does anybody? That's what I call doublespeak.

I can't argue with that. Your previous assertion was that he said there's "no lefty problem." However, he did....but he hedged on it with the statement you quoted above.

As for walks being hard to balance. I can totally agree with that, but there are literaly no walks in MVP. There is no way it's a balance issue, because you would have to have walks to be able to balance in the first place.

If you can stomach it, play two games, don't swing at any pitches and tell me how many walks you draw. If you draw more than 2 walks combined in those two games I wll be amazed. Also in your article it says they are collecting data, which doesn't mean they are working on it, unless he said more than you wrote.

What level are you playing on? One thing he told me (which I forgot if it made it into the piece) is that there can be more walks on the higher levels (like MVP) compared to Pro.

And you said "theres no walks issue according to him." I don't agree...that whole discussion was based on the fact that there is a good chance that there is a problem. BUT it's a problem that takes a lot of research to figure out, and he explained that. I thought he was being very straightforward there.

Again no offence intended, you asked what you did and got some anwsers. I just have a hard time with his replies, not because they are not what I want to hear. But because I honestly not sure if EA even considers some of these items problems. MVP is one good patch away from being the best damm baseball game I have ever played, but based on some of those responses, I'm not even sure we will see that promise reached in MVP2005.

I think they do care, but their priorities may be different than ours. Things like walks and steals may be a bit lower on the list. It doesn't seem like they paid a lot of attention to roster issues. But if we let them know that it's an issue, it'll likely be addressed in the next version.

Post by **Jared** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:50 pm

Oh, and thanks for all the kind words. I appreciate it. We hope to have more content from producers, developers, etc. in the future.

brendanrfoley · Post by **brendanrfoley** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:15 pm

Danimal wrote:
I've played about 56 games in MVP franchise, I have drawn one walk!

I've played about 15 games of ESPN, I draw 3-4 walks per game.

I play both games the same way, it is not like my eye is better in ESPN. I'm sorry there is a significant walk problem as far as I am concerned.

Plus calling my test "bogus" is not entirely true. Sure a real human would throw strikes all day if you just stood there. Not only do I have a hard time believing the AI in this game (or any game) is smart enough to recognize that. I have done said test and the AI through just as many balls as a real game. Many time throwing 2 or 3 balls then following up with strikes.

Maybe I am wrong an the AI can react to that, but I just don't see it. I assume the AI is programmed to work the batter and there is a variance for throwing a bad pitch.

I'm sorry you've only drawn one walk in 56 games. But as I said, I draw 2-3 walks a game. And the AI is that smart. I have a hard time with some pitcher's curve ball, and there are times I get a steady stretch of curves when I'm in abad stretch. If I hit a few, I stop getting curves. The AI in MVP game is pretty good in my opinion.

But here in lies the problem - you're convinced there's a serious problem and I'm saying it's minor, not serious. There's no way I can explain away the fact I draw more walks than you, but I do.

What you do with that information is up to you... I think it illustrates the difficulty of finding and solving the problem for the MVP developers.

mugsybutt · Post by **mugsybutt** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 12:36 pm

Any news on a patch for these problems?

Digital Sportspage

Coming up on DSP: Comments from MVP team on lefty bug + more

Walking