Another DDA (comeback logic) post
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You literally cannot convince me that there is NOT comeback logic in this game. I have been on both sides of this coin. I’ve played for years and it’s just so obvious it exists. Whenever I take a 3-5 run lead early in the game, and playing a player who doesn’t have as stacked a lineup… I just know what’s about to happen. All of sudden my batting skills are gonna go out the window… soft contact or hard contact but right at a fielder/warning track shot. Then their previously bad hitting is going to start turning into these awkward homeruns that float out of the park on a pitch that was probably not in the zone. And then once they make their amazing comeback, they won’t be able to for the next inning but your hitting may come back to life. All for it to end chaotically on some sort of frustrating combination of bloops hits, error, another awkward floaty home run that was possibly robbable at the fence but of course you didn’t get it. It happens so often that the formula script is too easy to lay out and spell for you. You’re truly a dunce if you think that this is not in the game.
Obviously no this is not in every game. But it’s in MANY games. Too make it close and “competitive” so ppl don’t get discouraged and never play again. Sometimes it is possible to survive the comeback, but whenever I don’t and they come back from the 3-5 run deficit and win- I’ll usually get rewarded some gold or diamond player after the game… I guess their way of saying “sorry that this weaker player came back and beat you. Don’t leave us!” lol it’s nauseating. I think it’s time to delete this game. It’s very frustrating.
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Yeah, it’s pretty obvious. I’ve lost a number of games I have had NO business losing, and made a few close that I had bo business being in at all.
If I start off strong and take an early lead, it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll suddenly lose the strike zone or give up a bloop and a blast to an opponent who had yet to make hard contact.
After they tie or take the lead, suddenly they will go back to not being able to make contact again, etc.
Sometimes you can hang on and win, sometimes not, but if you check the box score later, it almost always reads like a good, close ball game, regardless of what actually happened.
One game I lost to an opponent who had two hits the entire game, while my team had 6 perfect swings, and one run on about 8 hits.
Do I need to get better? Obviously, but there is certainly the “rubber band” effect in the game.
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@halfbutt Yep. Sounds about right. I’m by no means saying I’m perfect either btw… it’s just so obvious at this point. I’ve been on both sides of this debauchery too.
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I haven’t played H2H but it seems very illogical to be that the game could make another human suddenly make better contact or make better pitches only to have them revert back to being garbage after an inning or 2. Like they took a performance enhancer that helps them but it last 3 innings. Have you tried mound visits?
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Hmm... I'm still very skeptical of this, so perhaps that does makes me a dunce, but I'd venture it's more likely that people adapt.
Using timing/analog, it sometimes takes me a couple of times through the lineup before I get that timing down; sometimes I get lots of weak contact or just flat out miss if I'm a little early or late (that happens when using that interface--you just don't get good contact if you're even a little bit off), or if it takes me a bit to identify the sliders that get me chasing, but then I might start picking up the release better, or catch on to the other player's tendencies, and I'll put 3 or 4 up in the last few innings.
On the other side of the ball, I might get caught early by learning the hard way that someone smokes the high-and-away fastball, or dines on the down-and-in slider... come inning 6 or 7, sometimes I figure my opponent out and, with just a little bit of luck, I can keep the ball in the park.
I'm no world-beater in this game, but I've played thousands of RS games over the last several years... luck can swing things either way on occasion, but most of the time, the better player wins.
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For sure people adjust. Baseball is all about making adjustments.
That said, you don’t have to play online H2H in ranked or whatever to see the programming OP is alluding to.
Just play a vs cpu game on all star and then play a conquest stronghold game on all star.
If you don’t experience what OP is talking about, consider yourself lucky and keep enjoying the game!
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@halfbutt said in Another DDA (comeback logic) post:
For sure people adjust. Baseball is all about making adjustments.
That said, you don’t have to play online H2H in ranked or whatever to see the programming OP is alluding to.
Just play a vs cpu game on all star and then play a conquest stronghold game on all star.
If you don’t experience what OP is talking about, consider yourself lucky and keep enjoying the game!
He’s playing against another person so while your long posts are greatly appreciated they don’t necessarily apply.
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@fubar2k7 That's what DDA is. If you played online you would understand. DDA makes your perfect release get thrown down the middle. DDA is what manufactures the drama in the game. Example is a RS game. You've struck out your opponent 12 times in 5 innings. He hasn't made contact on anything. Suddenly he becomes Tony Gwynn at the plate and fouls off 11 straight pitches regardless of where they're at. You were at 46 pitches thru 5. Now you're at 60+ due to the programming allowing all the foul balls. After your opponent puts up a couple runs he goes back to striking out and not making contact.
It's really not that hard to understand. DDA started with Crash Bandicoot. They didn't want people quitting there game because they kept getting beat. That was like 25 years ago with no online play. Do you think a game with micro transactions would do the same in the year 2023?
If you don't think DDA is in a sports game with micro transactions you need your head checked. Just Google the words, "player retention" and "churn rate".
https://www.xtremepush.com/blog/what-are-player-retention-strategies/
When you don't sign on for a few days and when you log back in you get a good card that is DDA too.
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DDA wasn’t in the game I got struck out 25 times by Fernando Valenzuela in 2021. That isn’t why I quit playing online either. People not playing real baseball is why I quit. Like running themselves into idiot double plays or quitting in the 9th inning after I wasted 45 minutes.
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Sometimes the DDA says this guy is beyond my help.
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@SkunkyTrees1977 ... I get that you think you're absolutely right on this (or you wouldn't be telling people they "need their head checked"), but, consider, for a moment, the possibility that you aren't.
I had assumed, when first posting, that this thread referred to player vs player matchups only, but @halfbutt pointed out examples of CPU games; there, I can see dynamic difficulty coming into play, because user inputs don't have to be manipulated. That, to me, is the key. In a CPU game, dynamic adjustments do add drama and change the course of the game, but that's all make-believe anyway, because you really can't fool the CPU. It knows what you're doing, despite how it makes you feel. The CPU can take you down a notch at any point by simply taking balls and hitting the next strike over the wall to close a gap in scoring because it isn't relying on user input to generate that HR-generating swing. It just does it.
Assigning that to other humans is something else. You point out the old forced meatball point, and, yes, that happens, but it happens all the time, regardless of score. It's random, but the odds of that random event can increase depending on the situation. I'd argue that it happens more the longer a pitcher stays in a game, so when a player forces their starter into the 8th because he's already struck out 12 guys, the odds of him throwing a meatball are already higher because he's thrown more pitches. There are so many variables that contribute to those outcome; there's the pitch count, the clutch rating of batter and pitcher, control, confidence (per pitch and overall), and that's all before you factor in adaptations made by your human opponent.
There is randomness in this game that forces unexpected and undesirable outcomes throughout, and the late inning mistakes just stand out more... you're probably not going to remember the fastball that ended up right over the heart in the 3rd inning when you got lucky and the opponent missed it, but you're sure going to remember the one in the 8th that he didn't.
Maybe I'm mistaken, here, but a lot of what you're calling DDA is simply retention (that link had nothing to do with DDA as I understand it); DDA, I thought, was the actual adjustment of in-game difficulty by altering certain facets of the gameplay, not rewards and better luck outside of actual gameplay. You also mention Crash Bandicoot, but that isn't a head-to-head game like this.
Maybe there is some aspect of DDA that changes the game in a minor way, but there are other explanations, and not everyone finds this as obvious as you. Maybe I'm flat out wrong. Maybe you're attributing things to DDA that have nothing to do with it. I guess my point is that it isn't as clear as what you're saying, and people that play this game a lot don't necessarily agree with what you're saying...
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I'm on the receiving end of DDA all the time. I beat a 5 time flawless BR winner with 1 just 1 hit. The difference is I can admit when it helps me. Not just my opponent
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@The_Joneser And just for giggles why would a single player game have DDA to keep people from quitting, but an online multiplayer with real money doesn't?!?!?
Did you Google anything I said or you just posting what you believe?
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I love online forums… nowhere else is the esoteric discussed with such certainty. Perhaps that five-time Flawless player attempted a game after polishing off a case, had little luck with either of the controllers floating in front of him, still held his own, but lost a game to someone who got lucky with their one hit.
Dumb luck and varying circumstance affect everything, and sometimes that carries the appearance of something more nefarious at work. That doesn’t mean predetermined outcomes are the only explanation.
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@The_Joneser You keep using the word predetermined. That's not what we're talking about here. It would help if you understood what DDA is first.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around why it's so hard for you to believe it's in games today when it was in games for the last 20+ years. For crying out loud. I'm not asking you to believe in Jeebus. Just that companies allow bad players to hang around.
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I think it’s fascinating that many of you seem to be debating with OP on this stuff. I admit, I’m slightly envious! This game would be infinitely more fun if I could play it without experiencing the programming designed to keep games close.
I’m not going to argue, because it’s plain as day. If you don’t see it, you will eventually after a few more years of playing the game, and if not, like I said, I’m jealous. You must really enjoy the game!
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@halfbutt Anyone who plays online long enough will definitely see this.
I was playing Conquest the last 4 days. I lost count how many games I should've lost if the CPU didn't make the dumbest error I'd ever seen. That's not even talking the terrible attempted steals and baserunning they do. That's DDA....
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Oh, and to fubar, yes, I know OP was talking about H2H games. My point was, you can just as easily experience what he is talking about by playing vs the cpu.
The game is the game.
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@SkunkyTrees1977, if you aren't talking about predetermined results, then what did you mean by this: "DDA makes your perfect release get thrown down the middle"? Or by the rest of what you're saying, for that matter? I'm not interpreting that as predetermined wins and losses, but you are absolutely saying that the game is playing a certain way despite the user input if, "suddenly," someone who was hitting now cannot and vice versa.
I do understand what dynamic difficulty is, and I'm also saying that I could be wrong. I'm just as incredulous as you are by my take when I read that you are so certain that DDA is behind all of these things that you see. I've played this game since the 989 days, and I see these as mostly random events, occurring randomly, with random outcomes. Sometimes, I'll play poker with a novice and they'll take three or four straight hands because they drew better cards. It happens.
I do make the distinction between single and head-to-head games because the CPU isn't bound by input in any way; it is all a script meant to engage the player in the feeling of being in a dramatic game. That's a very different scenario. The CPU simply doesn't have that amount of control over the outcome if two real players are trying to deceive one another and relying on their input hit and pitch and field. Granted, maybe there is some type of in-game difficulty adjustment that puts players in more favorable positions, but they still have to execute at some level, and that alone puts the better player on top most of the time (and makes a single-player CPU game a completely different animal).
But, I'll stop and let you believe what you want to believe. I mean, how could it be possible that you're incorrect. You made this game, right?
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I mean, if you accept that this game is a simulation, then you have to accept that there are other variables involved in determining outcomes than just user input, right?
