I had someone look at the power formula for me to determine a good level of power for high average, low power guys. In the process, my RBI mind was subsequently blown by a find that some of you might have figured out on your own, but I only just learned of.
Here's the summarized techie transcript, followed by the translation.
Uses Power, Direction, Height and then using a huge amount of equations to get final numbers
Power is:
Batting Power - (Contact * x)
where x is 0 to 6 depending on where contact occurs
Height = Random Number between x00 and x3E with some adjustments
If you press nothing and value is less than x10 then add x18 to random
If you press DOWN and random is less than x10 then add x30 to random
If you press UP and random is less than x10 than add x10 to random
The higher the number the more the ball goes upward.
The translation:
Pressing DOWN while swinging makes it more a chance for popup or deep.
Pressing UP while swinging makes it more of a chance for line drive.
If you are trying for a home run or sacrifice fly then pressing down would be helpful. If you're trying to get on-base, pressing up would be a better strategy.
Is this news? It was to me...I almost always hit nothing when I swing...
This is indeed news, as far as I know - I don't know of anything that had ever substantiated the ability to affect vertical trajectory with your swing. The effect has been observed before - Gantry has an entry in the glossary for "The Retreat", in which he moves back in the box while swinging and claims that it increases home run power - but I always had assumed it was just superstition, not an actual game mechanic.
This would probably be HUGE information for the guys at the COTUT... I wonder if the nationally-competitive guys like Riley and Beales are aware of (or at least suspect) that something like this exists. I generally think of in-the-box movement as being mostly side-to-side to deal with pitch direction, and I don't know that a pull back or push forward at the same time is something one usually has time for.
I know, right? This blew my mind, and my b-hole.
Good call on the retreat, btw, I never thought of that, but now it makes sense.
Basically you're pressing what part of the ball you want to aim for...press up, you'll hit the top of the ball, shooting it downward...press down, bottom of ball, getting under it...
I'd say it's huge. 25 years after the game was made, still figuring out stuff. So maybe there's some science behind Gantry's "slide" technique.
Quote from: Turd on 04/24/12, 03:42:14 PM
I had someone look at the power formula for me to determine a good level of power for high average, low power guys.
On a semi-related note, I have never really come up with a good solution for this - guys like Joe Mauer don't really translate well to RBI. I usually give them a bit of a power boost from what their power numbers would generally call for, because a guy with 750 power just isn't that good no matter how low his contact rating is.
Beef, that's precisely what I'm trying to determine, and if it can't be done with numbers, then perhaps a hack can be written for high average weak power guys.
I'm trying to figure out how you'd hack something like that, though... maybe some sort of attribute that leads to a specific hit type? I'm thinking low liners - high enough to get over the infielders' heads but low enough that they'll land before the outfielders can get them. It would provide single and gap power without leading to the homers that come with high power ratings. Crafting specific outcomes like that seems like delving pretty deep into the hacks, though.
My idea was exactly that...a "weak power" attribute that let you give a guy a large power number but kill his HR chances...maybe something even along the lines of forcing an "UP" press for certain guys so that their homerun chances are lowered because that guy is always aiming for a ground ball/line drive.
Holy hell, if this finding isn't enough to update the Dee-Nee front page, nothing is. This seems like a big deal. Somebody set up some testing, stat!
Pretty crazy news. Nice work, turd.
Never been a fan of the retreat at all, feel like it fucks up the timing as I've forever been a top of the box guy. This might call for a visit from Chubbs and a couple 12 18 packs.
Nice work Turd. I tried it out, and it's not exact but there seems to be some truth to it. Only played 2 games, but it's not a guarantee, but seems to raise the liklihood of a ground/fly ball. One thing I detected is it seemed to be predicated on making solid or decent contact. That seemed to higher the chances. Sometimes I flied out holding up and grounded out holding down.
Maybe it's just me, and again it was only based on 2 games, and I don't know if it's all the way true, but there seems to be some truth to it.
Beef, you've seemd to play a lot of baseball games (from the 8 and 16 bit era) how do other games like WSB, Griffey, Sports Talk etc. rate and base contact?I'm interested on how singles/doubles hitters can be more effective. Only thing I can think of is 800-840 (approx. for RBI 3, maybe 815-820) with a low contact rating. So they can drive the ball, but don't have the power to go out consistently. For RBI 3, 815-840 is equivalent to players with 17/18-22 HR. So maybe you could go to 845-850 which would be 23/24 HR.
This is certainly news.
Now can you see what happens to the error ratio when you press a button just before fielding?
Livest, this isn't just a theory. I had a friend debug the gMe and watch the batting algorithm. This is definitely happening.
As you said, it isn't a 100% given that a down will always pop up and up drives it down. It just INCREASES THR CHANCES. The height and direction randomizer, power, and contact all play a factor.
Also, we've been chatting and testing for a number that gives hits but doesn't leave the yard a lot.
I'll let you all know the results when we're done.
Where is gantry? He should quit brushing his cats and post!
The Retreat is verified, awesome work here
8)
One thing to consider though is that only happens if your "random" number is between 0&15, if it comes up between 16 & 53 it doesn't affect it. So 25% of the time, the retreat helps. The other 75% it does nothing
I'd play the lottery if I had those odds
Quote from: thalivest on 04/24/12, 09:34:52 PM
Beef, you've seemd to play a lot of baseball games (from the 8 and 16 bit era) how do other games like WSB, Griffey, Sports Talk etc. rate and base contact?I'm interested on how singles/doubles hitters can be more effective. Only thing I can think of is 800-840 (approx. for RBI 3, maybe 815-820) with a low contact rating. So they can drive the ball, but don't have the power to go out consistently. For RBI 3, 815-840 is equivalent to players with 17/18-22 HR. So maybe you could go to 845-850 which would be 23/24 HR.
This I don't really know. I've played a lot of other games from the 80s-90s (lots of Baseball Simulator 1.000, the first Griffey, Baseball Stars, Little League Baseball, and Bases Loaded 3, with a few attempts at Bo Jackson, Tecmo Super Baseball, Bases Loaded, Roger Clemens Baseball, and Hardball 3 on the PC), and I've never really figured out how the contact logic works for those.
RBI has had by far the most study put into the actual internals of the game... I don't know if any similar work has been done on any of the other ones.
Quote from: Turd on 04/24/12, 09:58:37 PM
Livest, this isn't just a theory. I had a friend debug the gMe and watch the batting algorithm. This is definitely happening.
As you said, it isn't a 100% given that a down will always pop up and up drives it down. It just INCREASES THR CHANCES. The height and direction randomizer, power, and contact all play a factor.
My bad, when I said theory, I didn't mean it as something that hasn't/hadn't been tested and/or proven verified. But there's truth like I said (though it was only based on 2 gms). It's not a guarantee, but it did increase the probability.
Quote from: BeefMaster on 04/25/12, 11:19:50 AM
Quote from: thalivest on 04/24/12, 09:34:52 PM
Beef, you've seemd to play a lot of baseball games (from the 8 and 16 bit era) how do other games like WSB, Griffey, Sports Talk etc. rate and base contact?I'm interested on how singles/doubles hitters can be more effective. Only thing I can think of is 800-840 (approx. for RBI 3, maybe 815-820) with a low contact rating. So they can drive the ball, but don't have the power to go out consistently. For RBI 3, 815-840 is equivalent to players with 17/18-22 HR. So maybe you could go to 845-850 which would be 23/24 HR.
This I don't really know. I've played a lot of other games from the 80s-90s (lots of Baseball Simulator 1.000, the first Griffey, Baseball Stars, Little League Baseball, and Bases Loaded 3, with a few attempts at Bo Jackson, Tecmo Super Baseball, Bases Loaded, Roger Clemens Baseball, and Hardball 3 on the PC), and I've never really figured out how the contact logic works for those.
RBI has had by far the most study put into the actual internals of the game... I don't know if any similar work has been done on any of the other ones.
I was asking to see if there's a reference one could use then extrapolate and transfer. As far as RBI 3 anybody with under 800 power is all but useless, and that equates to any player with 16 HR or less. RBI is more power predicated so 800 pwr player will be a little more effective.
You mentioned Joe Mauer. If I was making him in RBI 3 I would make him anywhere from 815-830/835 with single digit. That would give him the same power as someone with 18-21 HR, see Will Clark/Dave Henderson. So he'll have pwr to drive the ball and with the low contact he can it consistently, but the 815-835 contact will keep him from going yard so often. That's my best guess.
Quote from: ultimate7 on 04/24/12, 09:48:06 PM
Now can you see what happens to the error ratio when you press a button just before fielding?
Beef I wanted to get the player breakdowns from other games (so far PMeth gave a spreadsheet for RBI 3 and the division winners 83-89). He also told me how to use translhexion and get a "thingy table" which should enable me to get info for other games (mostly 8 & 16 bit). The problem is I have no idea how to read or decipher them.
Maybe Turd or nightwulf could let me now, other than that I can open them as Microsoft Word Documents and there's just a lot of shit and I don't know what any of it actually means.
Hit me up on IM or something. I might be able to help depending on the data.
I don't have/do IM. It was something that PMeth was guiding me through (via email), and I was just fucking around with it. And seeing how you and Beef were discussing contact ratio for non-power hitters it's something I wanted to look into and draw references from other games from that era, and how they rate contact.
He (PMeth) told me to download Translhexion, load a ROM, thne do a "search relative". Type in a players name, then click on "thingy table". All that worked but when I save it and open I could see it was there as it would list the game tile and some other reckognizable things, but after that, like I said, it was a lot I couldn't decipher. I saved them to my hard drive and can find them, or do that search for most games. Reading, understanding and decipering it is another story.
Nightwulf and yourself seem (are) mre versed in this than myself so I'd thought I'd mention and see if you could help.
I don't know what a "thingy table" is...I wonder if that means "string table?" If so, it's a list of pointers that the game uses to find text within one long string of text...
Nevermind, I now know what a thingy table is. Basically it just maps a character to a hex value. RBI uses this for all its letters...
Tecmo Super Bowl, for instance, uses ascii for storing text, meaning that if you want it to say Aaron Rodgers you'd literally convert the ascii string to binary and write that to the ROM.
In RBI, the letter A is x10, B, is x11, etc...
I learn something new every day.
I have a breakdown of a bunch of the usable letters to codes somewhere on my site, but no idea where.
Have you checked inside your asshole?
Twice...
I have them all as well. None of them were retrieved from the inside of Gantry's funbox.
Quote from: Turd on 04/30/12, 02:44:26 PM
Nevermind, I now know what a thingy table is. Basically it just maps a character to a hex value. RBI uses this for all its letters...
Tecmo Super Bowl, for instance, uses ascii for storing text, meaning that if you want it to say Aaron Rodgers you'd literally convert the ascii string to binary and write that to the ROM.
In RBI, the letter A is x10, B, is x11, etc...
I learn something new every day.
ascii... what?? You gonna have dumb that down for me. So if A is x10 and B is x11 my assumption is that C is x12 , D is x13 and so on, would I have to go through it like that as that seems like an awful lot ofr work/time. And you'd have to factor my binary knowledge (which is very limited to begin with) stmes from a computer/programming class I took years ago, and can remember very little. Not that I paid much attention during the class.
Though I'm not necissarily looking to write it to a ROM, just basically player ratings/breakdowns are what I'd like to have from diffeent games (8 and 16 bit) and see if I can draw parrallel's between them. Gantry/nightwulf had the original RBI, and PMeth sent me a breakdown of RBI 3 so I could comapre, now I would just like as many as I can get to compare.
Or at least know how to decipher them so I won't have to bother people all the time.
Quote from: Gantry on 04/30/12, 03:00:20 PM
I have a breakdown of a bunch of the usable letters to codes somewhere on my site, but no idea where.
Would you be willing to look on my behalf?
Quote from: Turd on 04/30/12, 03:40:20 PM
I have them all as well. None of them were retrieved from the inside of Gantry's funbox.
Is there anyway I can get a look?
At gantrys fun box? You'd have to ask him. Buy him some boxed wine.
As for thingy table, I'll look it up. I bet all three use similar style thingy tables.
Thanks, B, appreciate it.
So Gantry, what do you say? Some cheap wine and I get a gander at that asshole?
Nothing in a box or jug, I'm a classy dame...
0-9 = x00-x09
A-Z = x0A-x23
a-z = x28-x41
SPACE = x24
. = x25
' = x27
That helps for RBI 1. Thanks.
I just ran a quick search for different games (WSB 98 Genesis, same as WSB 95) and RBI 94 (want to know the ratings for pitchers stamina, starters seem to go deeper, 7th and 8th, than any other version), ran a few names, and values seem to correspond with the values associated. Figured out the letters (capitals & lower case), the #'s, period, space 1 or 2 others manually, but not much else.
I haven't been able to find stats (Avg, HR etc or ratings Pwr, Spd etc.), just the basics, names & #'s, so any help on locating/finding those would be appreciated.
Wanna try Sports Talk Baseball (Genesis) to see how they rate contact (and stamina) as well.
Right, but I'm sure they translate to the other games...I doubt they changed the thingy table much...
I can pretty much find what represents what, for eg WSB 95/98 (Genesis) would be....
A = 41 a = 61
B = 42 b = 62
..... .....
Z = 5A z = 7A
0 = 30
1 = 31
......
9 = 39
and.....
( = 28
) = 29
. = 2E
SPACE = 20
RBI '94 is almost exactly the same. Now the Thingy Table has a bunch of different characters, do I have to go through each charachter (42, 74, 6A for eg), one by one to decipher it or is there a quicker way? And please tell me there's a quicker way.
I don't know of a quicker way. You'll have to find someone smarter than me to figure that one out...shouldn't be too tough ;)
BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gantry?? nightwulf?? Anyone?? Or I'm really gonna have to through this shit one by fucking one.
I've done enough of it in my day...just gotta find a pattern and roll with it.
This is a bigger bitch than I thought. I was fucking around with WSB 98 and STB and could find the names of players (rather easily) but could access their attributes. So what I tried was an old mathematics theory (get the answer from the back of the book and work baackwards from answer to equation).
Since the RBI player attributes have already been found I used that as my frame of reference. I used the AL's rotation (Key, Sbrhgn, Righti, Henke), but could not find the "drop, curve, stamina etc." I can find the line up (Mttgly, Cansco, Bell etc) but again.... no pwr, sped etc.).
If I could get an idea how to find them on the RBI, I figure I can simply extrapolate and transfer with Genesis games (as they all seem to use almost the exact same code, if not exact).
Player/Team Info [Teams in order from 1-30]
PLAYERS: x6010-x7E0F (16 players per team)
BATTERS DATA: Player#, Name (6 bytes), Arm Type, Batting Average Hi, Home Runs, Contact, Power Lo, Power Hi, Speed, Batting Average Lo, UNUSED
PITCHER DATA: Player#, Name (6 bytes), Sinker Ability/Arm Type, ERA Hi, Sinker Speed, Curve Speed, Fastball Speed, Curve Ability, Stamina, CPU Left, CPU Right
PER-PITCHER BATTING/LONG ERA: x10-x3CF (4 pitchers per team)
PITCHER DATA: Batting Average Hi, Home Runs, Contact, Power Lo, Power Hi, Speed, Batting Average Lo, ERA Lo
Now, the era hi/lo and per pitcher batting stuff isn't going to be useful to you because that's a hack...the original game didn't have per pitcher batting attributes and the era was limited to a certain range and used a formula (which I had figured out somewhere along the lines) to determine the value, something like hex value - 100...can't remember for sure. Oh yeah, same for batting average, that's a hack as well...
Everythign else should be stock...
Thanks. Right now I'm just working with the original 10 team RBI, now if that doesn't have the per pitcher/batter info (and I don't think it does) then it's useless to me, as I'm back at square one. I working around the 10 team one, as I just want to get the basics. I figure if I can sort my way through 10 teams I can through 30.
Now players (12 batters, 4 pitchers) for the original RBI I can find but no per batter/pitcher info. I tried with a 10 team hacked ROM and the same thing, I can locate players names (12 batters, 4 pitchers) but now batter pitcher info such as Avg, Pwr, Spd, ERA, Drp etc. Same thing with Genesis games (WSB 98, RBI 94, STB) find teams line ups, but not per batter/pitcher info (stats, ratings). Is there anyway I can locate this or is this as far as I can go?
As I said, that information that I gave you on the 30 team can be translated over to the 10 team ROM rather easily, it's just in a different location. The only thing you won't get out of there is the ERA/BA, but I might ahve that documentation laying around somewhere...
I'll take whatever you have/ willing to to send.
Quote from: Turd on 05/03/12, 04:42:44 PM
Player/Team Info [Teams in order from 1-30]
PLAYERS: x6010-x7E0F (16 players per team)
BATTERS DATA: Player#, Name (6 bytes), Arm Type, Batting Average Hi, Home Runs, Contact, Power Lo, Power Hi, Speed, Batting Average Lo, UNUSED
PITCHER DATA: Player#, Name (6 bytes), Sinker Ability/Arm Type, ERA Hi, Sinker Speed, Curve Speed, Fastball Speed, Curve Ability, Stamina, CPU Left, CPU Right
PER-PITCHER BATTING/LONG ERA: x10-x3CF (4 pitchers per team)
PITCHER DATA: Batting Average Hi, Home Runs, Contact, Power Lo, Power Hi, Speed, Batting Average Lo, ERA Lo
Now, the era hi/lo and per pitcher batting stuff isn't going to be useful to you because that's a hack...the original game didn't have per pitcher batting attributes and the era was limited to a certain range and used a formula (which I had figured out somewhere along the lines) to determine the value, something like hex value - 100...can't remember for sure. Oh yeah, same for batting average, that's a hack as well...
Everythign else should be stock...
OK I'm lost.... again. For eg I can find Bell & Canseco.....
"02 0B 2C 33 33 2F 2F" which denotes player #2 Bell, space, space
"03 0C 28 35 3A 2A 36" which denotes player #3 Cansco
So up until this point I'm fine. Where I get lost is after the players names.....
-After Bell it says "00 9E 2F 0E A8 03 7C 00 00 (all I can get from this is 00=00, 9E=?? 2F=h, 0E=E, 03=03, 7C=??, 00=00, 00=00)
Note: ?? means I don't knowWould this be where Avg, Con, Spd etc. are stored?
For pitchers I can find Saberhagen.....
"0D 1C 29 39 2F 2E 35" which denotes player #D Sbrhgn
-After Sbrhgn it says "92 EC 98 A5 B9 B6 28 71 8F" (other 28=a I have no idea what the other values denote).
Would this be where ERA, Drop, Curve L etc. are stored? Or what do the represent? This is where I get lost.
You convert those hex numbers to decimal (using windows calculator, hit alt-3 to put it in scientific mode, and click the radio button for "hex")
So, for instance, x9E is his batting average hi, which I can't remember how to calculate...it's different in the original, so ignore this for now until I can remember...
then next number is x2F, which is 47 in decimal...that's his HR number.
Then x0E, which is 14, his contact.
Then, for power, it's two numbers to determine value, a hi and a lo. xA803...basically you swap these to get the value, so in calc, enter 03A8, which gives you 936, which is power
Next is x7C, which is 124 in decimal, his speed
Batting average lo...original game doesn't use this
and the last byte is unused...
Make sense?
Thank you, my dude. I love the fucking shit outta you. I get it now, appreciate all your help.
Would you be able to give me that same breakdown regarding pitchers?
Sure...post the line from a pitcher for me and I'll break it down...
Quote from: Turd on 05/08/12, 02:43:53 PM
Sure...post the line from a pitcher for me and I'll break it down...
No problem......
After Sbrhgn it says "92 EC 98 A5 B9 B6 28 71 8F"
NOTE: Regarding batting avg. From playing aroung with #'s it seems if I convert the hex value to a decimal then add 111 it gives the avg that lines up with said player. I've only checked about 3 but it seems to give their avg.
Yeah, that sounds *about* right...
92 - Sinker Ability/Arm Type - split this byte into nibbles - sinker ability is 9, arm type is 2 (0=RO, 1=LO, 2=RS, 3=LS, I think)
EC - ERA Hi - In the 10-team ROM, I believe this is their ERA, and uses a similar formula to calculate the ERA
98 - Sinker Speed (Up + A) - 152 in decimal - There's a formula that converts this to a MPH range. I have it somewhere
A5 - Curve Speed (A) - 165 in decimal
B9 - Fastball speed (Down + A) - 185 in decimal
B6 - Curve Left, Curve Right - split into nibbles - CL = 11, CR = 6
28 - Stamina = 40 decimal
71 - CPU Left - 113 decimal - determines some stuff in watch mode for when to throw a curve and how much to curve it
8F - 143 decimal - determines some stuff in watch mode for when to throw a curve and how much to curve it
Thank you once again, kind sir.
Pretty good just off of memory, eh? :)
Just from memeroy?? I'd say better than good. I fucked up on Avg, it the dec # + 150 (not 111, I clicked on a different rom). And that same premise for ERA is dec # + 100.
Although I am missing "bats R/L", haven't been able to locate that.
If I recall correctly, I think that one's just one of the bytes of the batting data, a 0/1 switch for R/L (it can be 2 in RBI 2/3, for switch hitters).
WHO THE CRAP ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY HAVE I NEVER DISCOVERED THESE FORUMS BEFORE?!
Kinda stunning to stumble upon this forum, ain't it?
Wait till he hits anything goes. He just might lose faith in humanity
Quote from: NintendoLegend on 05/09/12, 10:57:31 PM
WHO THE CRAP ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY HAVE I NEVER DISCOVERED THESE FORUMS BEFORE?!
Anti-Nowhere League - 01 - We Are The League (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nu6z6NGtOs#)
Welcome NintendoLegend!
Quote from: BeefMaster on 05/09/12, 01:52:15 PM
If I recall correctly, I think that one's just one of the bytes of the batting data, a 0/1 switch for R/L (it can be 2 in RBI 2/3, for switch hitters).
You are correct, Beef. I forgot to mention that...the first number in his batter line was x00 and then x9E.
x00 = Righty
x01 = Lefty
x02 = Switch (only with the switch hitter hack applied)
Quote from: NintendoLegend on 05/09/12, 10:57:31 PM
WHO THE CRAP ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY HAVE I NEVER DISCOVERED THESE FORUMS BEFORE?!
Also, NintendoLegend, whether you're an alternate account of a veteran poster, or a legitimate newcomer, we welcome you.
If you prefer to chat about the game, hang out here...if you want a glimpse into a very dark, but awesome place, head over to the "Anything Goes" section as mentioned. I'm more of a lurker over there, but I've found myself busting a gut out loud while reading that trash more often than I can count. Your whole perspective will change. The question of for the better or for the worse will be up to you.
Long-time player of RBI. Been using your updated ROM's the last few years. I'm ready to be called up from the minors to the big leagues. Whether I'll be more like Todd Van Poppel or current phenom Bryce Harper, remains to be seen. Look forward to contributing in any way that I can. --Chad
Welcome. I have only a few more teams to go before I move onto the most difficult part, pitching. Slowly chipping away at it. I also need more testing on the ground ball hack.