Five (6) Simple Things to Fix SC
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I know, I know...another post about a mode "nobody cares about"(plethora of evidence to the contrary). But there are several additions to the Creator that need to be made if they wish to continue keeping it viable.
1- If you're not going to provide full playing surface control, then SDS you should be providing 10 to 15 templates for foul territory. This would be separate from the outfield wall templates. Give us five of the MLB templates, then the other ten can be the various minor league parks (Shippet, Barnes Canyon, BayFront, etc). This will provide the ability to creators to make things more unique, greater variety of styles...and then make ALL the space usable with no dead zones. The "jewel-box" was outdated about 1 week after release in '21. This wouldn't be a difficult implementation. With the game allegedly releasing on PC for '26, the mods will be quick to follow, so you may as get on board with it.
2- Outfield dimensions should have a "min/max" requirement applied in order to keep the stadiums online eligible. Right now it's "oh, I see you moved your wall a 1/4", ineligible for online play" Utilizing a min/max setting would not only allow stadium creators/users to play with these stadiums online...but keep the "cheater" stadiums like Lagrasa out of picture unless used for Franchise or RTTS/Offline. Gives creators more freedom, keeps lame exploit stadiums out. Two stones with one bird: Chuck Norris-style
3- Applying the ground-trim logic to the walls would go a long, LONG way in quality of the creation suite. Currently, when you take a section of seat and sink it into the ground, it neatly trims that section to the nearest row. Take that trim logic, and code it into the walls to make them the hardpoint. You've now created the ability to make clean, seamless designs without awkward dead space.
4- Batter's Eyes need to be attachable, and potentially movable/lowerable...they absolutely cannot continue to be these massive untouchable things. The biggest problem is their "shadow" is way too big- even the flat sides that have a bit of an overhand from a ledge create a solid no-go zone straight down. The Minnestoa eye for example is next to useless because of it's design shadow and awkward shape...however if it were made attachable, this would eliminate the ugly useless space. Angel Hill is another one...the shrubs stick out like 6", and because of that you can't cleanly align anything to it...not to mention it sits WAY too high. One of the newer "generic" eyes, it's the brick building with cream roof and balcony, would be PERFECT for tons of things if we could add some fans to the walkway, lower it a bit. It also has t hat slight edge that makes it impossible to make a clean alignment.
5- Integrate more useful props...different seating styles, ability to tarp off seats, maybe add more eyes from all the ballparks. Can we get different flags? At the bare minimum, the countries competing in the WBC. With the wall textures, can we have an option for Wrigley style Ivy? Having the ivy as a prop is next to useless, so making it a texture is the logical thing.
Five. Five simple things. We can add "retractable roof" to make it an even half-dozen. These things alone would represent a huge leap forward to the stadium creator. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's far more popular than people realize, or care to admit.
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The ability to edit foul territory would be great along with the ability to move bullpens. I don't mind them being in foul territory but I'd like to shrink the foul territory.
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@sullivanspring_MLBTS said in Five (6) Simple Things to Fix SC:
The ability to edit foul territory would be great along with the ability to move bullpens. I don't mind them being in foul territory but I'd like to shrink the foul territory.
I agree. I, along with a few other creators, have been wondering about the decision to use a jewelbox template (a design not seen for decades) and nothing else. My biggest concern, assuming in 26 we'll actually be able to mess with foul territory, would be that it'll cause the same unusable dead zones that we see with the bizarre fence templates.
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Sarge,
The jewelbox design as SDS created it for the customer version of Stadium Creator has never been used. In using the option to modify all the wall panels, I went back to the origins of the game and released a half dozen different stadiums all the way back to the day that the Cincinnati Red Stockings played the first game in American (world) history with professional players. It bore zero resemblance to the jewelbox layout SDS forced everyone to use.
The earliest stadiums were polo, cricket, and town fair grounds. When walls were first built to control crowds, the first generation simply took the walls down the baselines and extended them straight down the lines until intersecting with the foul poles, but then continuing straight ahead until intersecting with the center field walls.
Take a look at some of those stadiums I designed and you'll see what I mean. And yes, those stadiums are precise replications of the actual parks used at the turn of the century. A surprising degree of information, including original street maps and blueprints are available for these parks and so I was able to make the layout almost perfect to the real world. Only a few SC code restrictions have caused me to break with reality, but only in relatively minor ways.
Then, stadiums widened out down the baselines until halfway to the foul poles, and this is where things became mostly unique setups. The pinch in walls past the infields became predominant in the 1950's, and shortly after the bullpens started getting moved off the field of play.
In my view, SDS settled on their jewelbox because it was boring, with way too much foul territory down the baselines. SDS made a strategic decision to ensure that stadiums created with our version of SC would be boring, and incapable of featuring the same tight configurations devoid of not merely ugly dead space, but entirely foolish dead space that no baseball park built to produce revenue would set up. Why have empty space when revenue producing seats could be inserted instead!
I'm not providing SDS any more suggestions because I conclude they don't care. So, I won't buy their game going forward. Until loss of sales revenue endangers the checks to Sony, the executive leadership at SDS will remain in place and we already see what their focus is on.
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I always thought a possible "fix" to get the bullpens off the field would be to make them function like batters eyes. Make them necessary props that could be moved but not deleted. I'm sure that would take a decent amount of programming to make the players or assets populate with the prop, but certainly not impossible.
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Suel,
The bullpens are normal props that have been coded to make them unmovable in the customer version of Stadium Creator. I know this because I have been told this by the people who designed and worked on SC when it was first released.
All that SDS needs to do is ensure the entire bullpen prop is grouped together, and then remove the special code that locks down its position. Yes, SDS would also need to remove the ball boy's seat and position put in place to guard the bullpens, but that isn't hard to include as part of the bullpen group either.
Other items that most folks do not know are really just normal props that have been specially coded to be immovable are the batters eyes and the non-functional backstop netting behind home plate. The netting never has worked to actually block balls from entering the stands. Since SC was first released in MLB 21, these backstops have allowed balls to go right through them as though they are not there. They have been cosmetic.
However, they are normal props with the same code that determines that if the backstop walls are moved too far away from home plate, then this non-functioning backstop netting flags as being a prop on the field, one that you cannot of course move.
