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Does anyone play online? I'm down for some games here or there if people are interested. Mostly on the weekends I reckon as I'm in a bad euro timezone. edit: This is the worst snipe
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Jun 10, 2020 21:51
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ilmucche posted:Does anyone play online? I'm down for some games here or there if people are interested. Mostly on the weekends I reckon as I'm in a bad euro timezone. Does this have cross system online play?
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Jun 11, 2020 00:19
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It's got cross system for pennant race, I imagine for setting up online as well. On PC if you play someone cross system the have the metalhead logo and there's no voice comms.
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Jun 11, 2020 09:10
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1wtkqUupWk Freebooters are looking for their first series sweep, a win puts us at 4-2 since shaking up the lineup and rotation while a loss would make us a .500 team. The Herbisaurs are also a division leader so this game is vital if we want to start gaining ground. It's as close to must win as any game 18 can be. ilmucche posted:Does anyone play online? I'm down for some games here or there if people are interested. Mostly on the weekends I reckon as I'm in a bad euro timezone. Personally I haven't done any online play but I'd be down. Eastern US time zone though so it may be tough to sync up. kag3man3 posted:Does this have cross system online play? Only pennant race is cross platform for now (developers have mentioned working on that), and that's randomly matched until they come out with custom pennant sometime this summer. What system is everyone on? Currently looking like we'll be watching games 22 against the Crocodons and 24 against the Nemesis. I was kind of hoping to see the Sand Cats since it'll be easier to remember the names of those players but Crocodons are always a tough matchup and the Nemesis game was where we started turning the season around. I'm going to be putting together a screenshot update on the state of the team before we see those though, now that we got through that huge 6 game set and are approaching the season halfway point. Edit: Nothing to see here, definitely didn't post before the video was processed again. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 20:17
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Kache Baskette is out here tearing it up. There really does seem to be a sweet spot for competent B-grade batters where a pitcher won't fear them but they have enough behind their power swing to do some real damage. Shame about the relief pitchers too, I dunno if the low bullpen stamina makes the AI want to overuse them no matter what but the danger sense is nonexistent. Speaking of which, the Zeroes crashed out of the first round in the deciding game 5 - after something like six simulation playoff wins in a row last time I thought I was safe to watch two home games against a wild card, they choked both in the top of the 9th with massive home runs off relievers who should have been long-gone. I'm down to play in EST, I don't think franchise beast teams can go up against eachother but if it's co-op someone can share the manager's burden.
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Jun 12, 2020 10:09
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I'm good for head to head with the super mega teams. It's a chance to show off my sunnyvale trailer park team. Still hoping we can copy customisations over, as I'm not a huge fan of the blowfish..
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Jun 12, 2020 10:24
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tomanton posted:Kache Baskette is out here tearing it up. There really does seem to be a sweet spot for competent B-grade batters where a pitcher won't fear them but they have enough behind their power swing to do some real damage. This would be the third game Kache Baskette has been primarily responsible for winning (out of 6 wins). The 3 run jack in the first accounts for our final lead and the home run she robbed at the wall would've either tied the game or had them down by 1, don't recall if they had baserunners. That lady's doing it all this season on both sides of the ball. Also leading the team in HR's after starting the season as a utility outfielder? That's insane. I agree with what you said (also why pitchers always seem to get hits) and I think she has awesome traits that help a ton. Jackman actually has our best overall offensive stats (although after that game he's down one in the HR column) but it seems like Baskette's hits always come when we need them, with runners on or late in the game. The relief situation was an issue with SMB 2 as well when it first released and they ironed it out so I'm hopeful the bullpen substitution will be fixed sooner than later. Like I said for some weird reason it works great for non-DH teams but with DH teams it's just a mess. I don't know anywhere near enough about programming to venture a guess as to why. ilmucche posted:I'm good for head to head with the super mega teams. It's a chance to show off my sunnyvale trailer park team. Still hoping we can copy customisations over, as I'm not a huge fan of the blowfish.. If you mean copy a custom team onto a standard one I don't think that's possible. You can customize standard players and customize aesthetics (logo, uniforms, home field) but you can't change their stats without making it a custom copy of a standard team. I was actually thinking of changing the Freebooter's uniform design a little going into next season though.
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Jun 12, 2020 13:57
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Good game of baseball, shame to see doyle get hit like that but he needed to come out once the bases got loaded. The bullpen management is a bit weird you're right. I agree that the free agency is good, you actually have to play as your team for a while. Most people wouldn't make moves too quickly, except if they're dumping salary out the gate to build for the future. I saw someone had posted about doing that on reddit where they brought in the absolute minimum salary they could for 5 seasons to build up dev funds. seems a bit abusive! Baskette still kicking rear end, and robbing that home run (it was a two run shot that would've tied the game) was great. Would've been nice to see verde work the outside with that slider a little more ahead in the count. Low outside sliders against same handed batters induce a lot of swinging third strikes in this game. Cuveball Sliders posted:If you mean copy a custom team onto a standard one I don't think that's possible. You can customize standard players and customize aesthetics (logo, uniforms, home field) but you can't change their stats without making it a custom copy of a standard team. Yeah, I don't want to modify player stats but I did up the blowfish for pennant race, and now I want to switch back to the moose but transfer the visual customization over so I don't have to redo the whole team. Sadly it's not possible at the moment. Jim Lahey needs to be on the mound throwing Fun with bullpen management: In that moose franchise I had a pitcher take a line drive to the groin and go to rattled but uninjured so I subbed him out. Since mojo recovers so slowly he was still tense for his next start. A different pitcher had the same thing happen, right in the nads, but since I play in the dumbest league and was up by 9 or so I left him in to get his mojo back. He was normal for his next start. Next level pitcher management  Also had my 19 year old prospect pitcher give up a home run in the first inning of his first playoff start. Then went lights out allowing 5 more hits the rest of the game, it was fun and unexpected maddux from a guy who had an 8+ era regular season. The last 4 games of season 2 (I only play 20 game seasons because playoffs are fun) were wild 
ilmucche fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jun 12, 2020 |
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Jun 12, 2020 16:57
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State of the Team Midseason of year 1.  If you truly are what your record says you are, we are the worst team in the league. In real baseball when a team starts 2-10 they can overcome that down the stretch of a 165 game season and it isn't all that uncommon for good teams to get off to a slow start, especially teams built around power hitting. In a 48 game season like ours that's a much tougher proposition. Even if we keep winning at the rate we recently have been, we won't reach .500 (even wins and losses) until around game 40. Obviously at this point there's very little margin for error.  That said, lots of things to be hopeful about here. Here's the Wild Card picture:  There are 4 playoff spots in our conference which means even if we don't win the division we have 2 shots at a wild card spot. Over the past 6 games we've improved from 5 games behind to 3.5 games, a really nice jump in such a short span. Sweeping the Herbisaurs was especially huge because they are currently leading the division and knocking them down makes the entire race much closer. It also looks like the Moose have lost a bunch of games since we shelled them in game 14 and we have a real chance to overtake them and maybe even the Pigs in these next 4 games. Also check out the Epic Division in the Mega Conference. Wide Loads are dominating.  I had that stretch of 6 games circled going into the season and then after that terrible start they took on even more significance, I'm very proud of the way this team performed under that kind of pressure. Our starters were great, our batters were opportunistic, and in every phase of the game we played well enough to win. Most importantly in spite of Emery Doyle's best effort we didn't give away any games. I think this team does have a real shot of sneaking into the playoffs and once we're there anything can happen.  (Click for big version!) Team performance has improved dramatically. We went from 4 hitters below the Mendoza line (which I still need to put together an info post about) to 1 in Stephen Appleseed, who has not been the value pick I thought he could be. Kelly Polebean has led the team in OBP validating the decision to bring her on as a lead off hitter while Guns Jackman has been a stud since his move to second base, with his batting average improving from .279 to .343. Mojo drops from his defensive miscues at short were seriously holding him back at the plate. Kache Baskette has been leading the MVP vote and it's entirely warranted. She has 10 hits and 5 of them are home runs! She may not have the average of a Jackman but it seems like every one of those 10 hits has been when we most needed it. She's also flashed defensively such as when she robbed a go ahead 2 run homer at the wall against the Herbisaurs, easily the play of the game and it kept Doyle's 8th inning meltdown a mere footnote to an otherwise great game. Most impressively, backups just don't lead their teams in home runs. Put another way, she has half the AB's of most of the other starters yet leads them all in the long ball.  She's in the top 10 in the league off just 10 hits! Baskette is putting together a truly special year.  Another thing I wanted to share is Kelly Polebean has been great and absolutely worth the additional million. I still think Davila was an amazing value pick that early in the season but Polebean was an overall better player and has been outstanding. I'll admit I was wrong on this one, I thought we were reaching and overpaying for a good but not great player and she would be a one year rental but now I'm thinking she'll be worth holding onto for a while. She could hit at the top of this order for a long time to come. Without any other good leadoff options she fulfills a major need on this team and the combination of speed and ability to get on base is turning her into a run producing machine. She's also tied for league lead in times caught stealing, so there's that. In terms of pitching for the most part ERA has dropped, Ed Reed was actually as good as we were hoping in his first real start after the debacle that was his hiring. Rufus Houndstooth did that Freebooter thing where he threw a ton of pitches but for the most part was able to escape trouble, while both Angel Verde and Winnie Noelle now have statement wins on their records. Noelle especially has been outstanding since that opening game disaster. Another player I'm happy to admit I was wrong about. The bullpen has honestly stayed about the same, but that in itself is notable considering how much less we're paying for it. While the overall quality of the pitchers has probably declined, having a long relief option in addition to upgrading our starters has taken a ton of pressure off. Grace Loopinovich has probably been our most consistent pitcher overall but Ratherswell has been much better in relief than he was as a starter. Obviously you would hope for more from Doyle but he's cheap and I'm not sure there's anyone worth releasing him for right now.  Speaking of here's the current free agent list for pitchers. I starred a few more interesting players but at the moment all the upgrades are out of our price range. We could reach but it would cost all our development funds. A few interesting new faces though.   And here are the position players. Derrick Burton may be a good choice for a future starting catcher and can be a great DH right now, but again we wouldn't have much left over for development. Unfortunately I think we're stuck with Appleseed for now behind the plate, so hopefully he can get himself right. Badhop Brown for Burton may be a good move, it'd cost 2.1 million if we did it right now. Otherwise we don't really have many needs, we just need the talent we have to keep executing like they have been.  Here are the player cards. Just wanted to share because I love how the game does this. If you'd like to see anyone customized some let me know. I'm still waiting for our bench to kind of distinguish itself. Since moving Pomp Duchee we don't have a great option for everyday DH. Rocky Backstop and Badhop Brown have split the role but neither have really taken hold of it. Kenna Quorn has been really good as our backup catcher and I'm a little tempted to sit Appleseed for a couple games again.  Current development opportunities, we can afford anything on the list. Beefcake powder is really good but Ed Reed isn't a velocity pitcher (unless we want to make him one). Red Meat Diet isn't the worst thing for an outfielder but I don't like the risk of giving one of our best hitters a bad hitting trait. Ligament repair could make Angel Verde that much deadlier but I don't know if he'll still be around next season (which isn't necessarily an argument against given how important wins are right now). Video room is really good but also really expensive. I think I would go with video room for Sturdy Woodman or ligament repair for Angel Verde. Of course saving the money is also an option.  Speaking of money we're doing ok, maybe a bit lower than we should be. We had to overspend on those free agents and it wound up paying off and carrying us back into the division race, but it's also going to prevent us from making many more moves now. We do still have 5.4 million to play with and there are a few options to use the rest of that on. Keep in mind that if we decide to be sellers and unload salary we can make a ton of developmental funds very quickly, so I honestly wouldn't worry too much about that. More importantly when you're in win now mode the biggest bang for your buck is in free agency, development can be limited and a little too risk/reward to pay off in the short term.  We have a run of random games in front of us and will be watching Angel Verde at the Crocodons and (most likely) Ed Reed against the Nemesis. We haven't see the Crocs yet, they're a team with excellent starting pitching and every time I've played them have been tough defensively and at the plate. The one thing to hope for against this team is to break through to the bullpen. After those games we have a really tough road trip of at least 6 games starting at the Sirloins then a two game rematch against the Sawteeth who swept us to open the season, then a two game series against the Boss division leading Sand Cats. This is a huge test for this team and we need to keep gaining ground through it, a tough road trip can kill your momentum and any sort of losing streak would bury us. And that's the current state of the Freebooters. We're still in last place but overall much more competitive than we were just a week ago. There's a little money left over for free agent maneuvers or development. Our players have been playing far better since rebuilding the roster but we're going into one of the toughest parts of the season and the margin for error is razor thin.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:04
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At only 3.5 games back and the team playing a little better there's time to see if the gap gets closed a little. I'm looking forward to the mendoza post. It's a really goofy line in the sand, and references a career bench player who played more than 100 games only twice in 9 years. It's pretty harsh, but I guess as a way to look at the barest minimum you expect from a bench player it's fine. Worth noting that mendoza himself looked to be a below average defensive player as well! As much as you don't want those role players, you need them.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzpAi2QHA-0
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Jun 13, 2020 09:50
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Sorry about the delay, expect an update tomorrow. Sunday and Monday generally aren't good days for me to work on this. In other news Metalhead submitted update 3 for platform approval and that apparently has some new gameplay improvements including bullpen substitutions. I don't know when it'll be available for download and was kind of holding off until it drops but if it doesn't get approved tomorrow I'll at least upload the Crocodons game. Nothing about franchise lineups or pitching rotations in the information they provided unfortunately. There is an update coming at some point soonish that will let the game track stats over multiple seasons but apparently you'll have to start a new game for the benefits to kick in. I'm hopeful that's the one where they'll implement multiple user set lineups and control of the pitching rotation. The way pitching is set by the game is very problematic, even though I'm sure very few players are playing like we are here, simming can be a major part of franchise mode and the issue we ran into was also present in the simulator.
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Jun 15, 2020 16:21
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBgG8DNRq28 Following our first win streak have have a major road trip. Can we continue to make up ground against the Crocodons? If nothing else, watch the second and fourth innings to see Kache Baskette have some more big moments. I'm kind of wondering if I should stop updating for a bit until patch 3 comes out, as it's supposed to have some changes to AI that may help out. I don't mind setting the lineup every game (including the ones we're simming through) but it is kind of annoying. They said it was submitted for platform approval last week but I really don't know when it will come through. We'll get to the Nemesis game tomorrow and I'll have a decision by then. Hopefully in the interim more info will come out on what to expect in that update as well. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 22:37
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Coach: Alright their pitcher's looking pretty good so we want to get him out of the game early if we can. Work the count and tire him out, keep him throwing. Top of the lineup: Tire him out, got it. Baskette: Get him out, got it.
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Jun 17, 2020 17:48
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Sorry it had been so long since the last update, a combination of work and home life suddenly becoming much busier and me waiting for the update to drop (still nothing, they announced it almost 3 weeks ago now I think). However given what's happened here on the forums I'm going to just end the LP. While I hope Lowtax is able to realize what he did and become a better person in the end, I don't want to continue to utilize a website that provides any sort of financial support to him.
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Jun 25, 2020 16:51
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