This is gonna sound off the wall and might be difficult to program (And I'm sure y'all will mention to me problems with this idea) but could we have it where when you take over a team you determine the park factors? So if you wanted to be in Colorado and have a defensive park you could set it to -2,-2,-1,-3,-3 or vice versa in Portand/SD? It would be on the league comish to make sure owners aren't switching teams/ locations etc every 2 to 3 seasons to fit their current team. But if we are in the business of building a 'dynasty' wouldn't it make sense that we step in, build a ballpark to our liking (hell, I'd love naming my ballpark as well) and then start our franchise from there?

I figure as of now I have 5-6 months to figure out if I want to move out of SD or try to build my team around the new park.

Don't get me wrong, I love that adlorenz is making changes and making updates to the game. Considering we have had more done in the past 4 months then the past 10 years I couldn't be happier, I'm just trying to figure out if there is a different solution.

Well I do have to give you that - real life parks have been becoming more neutral over time, except of course Coors where there's nothing to be done for it.

If we're going to update to current real life baseball, does that mean that no one will hit singles - or steal bases - and every batter will average about .240?

Posted by bripat42 on 5/27/2021 10:40:00 AM (view original):
People complaining about losing pitching havens like Petco should blame real-life baseball executives and cut adlorenz some slack. He's simply trying to bring HBD's park factors in line with current real-life numbers. The soon-to-be-outdated HBD park factors are based on numbers that are almost 20 years old. Petco, for example, has been modified multiple times in the past 15 years or so with each modification favoring hitters. So, naturally, the new ratings will be less extreme.

People previously complained that park factors were out of date. Now, they're being updated, and people are complaining about having to deal with the change. It's a no-win scenario for adlorenz.

To be fair I wasn't complaining about the outdated parks.

What you have here is a case of 6 of one half a dozen of the other. :P

If we're being fully honest I don't think it will effect my teams success that much. Whichever park I play in my team still plays 81 games on the road. A good team is going to win regardless of where they play. Just now I might actually have some players in SD make the All-star game, MVP race, Silver slugger etc.

THERE'S NOT ENOUGH UPDATES!!

HEY, STOP UPDATING!!

Lol, some things never change

I noticed in an earlier post that Charlotte was going to be moved to BB&T/Truist Park and the ratings changed, but this update has it still in Knights Stadium and 0/0/0/0/0. Why did it revert?

Posted by Cooriador on 5/27/2021 2:28:00 PM (view original):
I noticed in an earlier post that Charlotte was going to be moved to BB&T/Truist Park and the ratings changed, but this update has it still in Knights Stadium and 0/0/0/0/0. Why did it revert?

Yes. I think that was me. I expected the new stadium in Charlotte to be updated and the new stadium in Charlotte is definitely more of a hitters park.

Also, I like the changes in general, but that's because I like tinkering with new strats.

I already see a few stadiums that I am excited to make my new home.

Is realism always the goal? The game will never be realistic. If it was, a major leaguer would die an average of every 4.5 years as they have through MLB history. But they don't in HBD because HBD's customers wouldn't want that. The same consideration should apply here. Is absolute realism in park factors what will make for the best game for HBD customers? In my opinion, no. People want variety, not bland conformity.

Posted by damag on 5/27/2021 10:45:00 AM (view original):
Well I do have to give you that - real life parks have been becoming more neutral over time, except of course Coors where there's nothing to be done for it.

If we're going to update to current real life baseball, does that mean that no one will hit singles - or steal bases - and every batter will average about .240?

There's always the occasional Javy Baez play to mix things up a bit.

I’m not too worried on the new dimensions on the stadiums my teams play in. I can lose a game in any place played.

on the expansion of the four foreign stadiums, I guess it’s a start, but there are so many in North America that users have an affection for. Like any of the old PCL parks, like Calgary, Edmonton, Spokane, etc.

just my Canadian two and a half cents

Posted by bripat42 on 5/29/2021 11:29:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rbedwell on 5/28/2021 11:04:00 PM (view original):
Is realism always the goal? The game will never be realistic. If it was, a major leaguer would die an average of every 4.5 years as they have through MLB history. But they don't in HBD because HBD's customers wouldn't want that. The same consideration should apply here. Is absolute realism in park factors what will make for the best game for HBD customers? In my opinion, no. People want variety, not bland conformity.

A fair question, but that's not really the point. The point is that the tinfoil hats in this thread are being ridiculous and need to cut adlorenz some slack. Last year, he asked for update suggestions -- and updated ballparks was a popular suggestion. Now, he's doing it, and people are acting like it's some Illuminati-level plot to neutralize ballpark factors in order to appeal to the masses. He's just following the numbers (at the request of customers) -- and this is where the numbers led him.

I agree with both of you here. rbedwell is right; players, especially veteran players, want wide park selection, and that's a good thing no matter how unrealistic. But we should also acknowledge that change is needed, and not everybody is going to like every change, and cut a programmer who's actually willing to program HBD some slack.

I, for one, will miss the dumb park names that apparently are named after programmers; most of them, including Whatifsports park in Santa Fe, are being renamed to something real. But it's a small sacrifice.

I don't see anyone here impugning adlorenz's character. Saying that it's great that there are some ballpark changes being made but then disagreeing with what those changes are is not a contradictory stance to take. I'm grateful that someone is trying, but the end result needs to be an improvement, not something that is less desirable than what it replaces.

Adding historic ballparks seems to be a popular idea from what I can determine here and in my world chats. Adding them would be a way to do both things: maintain great park variety while at the same time allowing them to leave intact the announced changes above. Many historic parks would have interesting ratings. The Polo Grounds, Tiger Stadium, Griffith Stadium, Sportsman's Park, Old Comiskey, Crosley Field, etc. all should have more extreme park effects than the parks that replaced them.

Hopefully they do the right thing for their customer base. They can have their cake and eat it too.

I think its great that changes are being looked at for the game. I just don't feel like changes should be made to say "look....we made a change". Part of the fun to set up a team in HBD is setting up a team to fit your stadium...pulling the ratings towards the middle will end up with many teams looking similar. Like in GD when every single team ran the same type of offense. I'm sure you have run simulations on what impact this will have on the game....what does that look like. Since the argument is that real life factors have changed, is the goal to get this to be more like current baseball.....lower BA and higher home run rate(although that has changed this season since MLB changed the baseball). The league batting numbers are typically pretty consistent from year to year in HBD. What do these changes do to those numbers? Personally I would be all for knocking a little of the offense out of the game....but I have a feeling these change will have the opposite effect. What have the simulations shown?

Posted by bripat42 on 5/30/2021 1:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bigbucks07 on 5/30/2021 7:21:00 AM (view original):
I think its great that changes are being looked at for the game. I just don't feel like changes should be made to say "look....we made a change". Part of the fun to set up a team in HBD is setting up a team to fit your stadium...pulling the ratings towards the middle will end up with many teams looking similar. Like in GD when every single team ran the same type of offense. I'm sure you have run simulations on what impact this will have on the game....what does that look like. Since the argument is that real life factors have changed, is the goal to get this to be more like current baseball.....lower BA and higher home run rate(although that has changed this season since MLB changed the baseball). The league batting numbers are typically pretty consistent from year to year in HBD. What do these changes do to those numbers? Personally I would be all for knocking a little of the offense out of the game....but I have a feeling these change will have the opposite effect. What have the simulations shown?

This is the kind of argument in this thread that is missing a big-picture viewpoint.

1. Changes aren't being made for the sake of change. They're being made because people have been complaining on these message boards for years -- yes, literally, years -- that there need to be updates. So, looking at customer complaints in the aggregate, which is what adlorenz appears to be doing, he is responding to the complaint that the game is stagnating due to a lack of updates. Now, he's getting pushback from people saying, "Wait, I didn't realize demanding changes meant the game would, you know, ...change!"
2. I don't see anyone arguing that the current goal is to make HBD more like current baseball. I previously made the point that ballpark factors always have been based on real-life numbers, though the lack of changes meant that those real-life numbers were more than 15 years old. So, naturally, any update that uses the same method for determining ballpark factors will bring ballparks in line with more recent numbers. So, any argument that "pulling ratings toward the middle" was the goal is based on flawed logic. The shift toward the middle is incidental and due to the data being used.

As I've stated in previous posts, it's fair to argue that there needs to be more variety in types of ballparks. In general, I agree with that argument. However, basing the argument on false assumptions or flawed logic about why current changes are being made weakens such arguments.

+1