New discovery in ROM data!

[pmaxx]

Hey all,

I've been a lurker on these boards for awhile now, and am thrilled that there is still such an RBI baseball following out there.  I used to play it when I was a kid and have just recently gotten into playing it again on the dreamcast/psx emulators.  I do miss the human competition factor, and since I'm in Chicago, maybe I'll try to get a seat in one of the upcoming tourneys.  

Also, before I get to the real meat of the post, I want to say thanks to everyone out there who's done anything to make the game more fun, including deciphering the roms, writing rom editors, making roms, etc.  I must say I've been having a blast with the 2k3 roms (though my one regret is that I can't pit the cubbies against the yanks .  

Anyhow, the 2k3 roms started getting me thinking.  I found a lot of pitchers who are able to throw a curve in the opposite direction but not in the normal direction (screwballs, if you will).  On the original rom, this phenomenon didn't exist.  There were a few pitchers who could throw a screwball, but they also had awesome curves, and most pitchers could only throw a standard curve well.  

So I figured there must be some value in the data that accounts for this.  I of course started with the "unknown" fields, which led me nowhere.  I'll be damned if I can tell any difference at all when I change those values.  

But then it hit me.  The curveball attribute that is so often mentioned is NOT a single byte field.  It's actually a pair of half-byte values each with a different meaning.   The first value is how well the pitcher curves (righties curving left and lefties curving right) and the second value is how well they screwball (righties going right and lefties going left).   Each value is 1-16 (0-F).  

Anyhow, I know this isn't revolutionary, but I think it kinda takes something away from the game when the curve doesn't match the handedness of the pitcher.  

I don't know who keeps up RBI manager (if anyone), so it might be too late for that one.  But perhaps, nightwulf, you can modify your online rom editor to take this into account (please test the theory first, of course, but I'm pretty sure it's correct).  

Also, one added comment for your editor, nightwulf.  It seems like you use some sort of frames (an IFRAME perhaps?) and the bottom of the left-hand frame gets cut off on my screen with no way for me to scroll down.  My laptop only does 1024x768 so maybe that's why.  Anyhow, not a big deal, but if you're digging in the code to fix something else, maybe you can fix that up also.

Well, I hope this information proves useful to someone.   And thanks again to everyone for this site, the roms, the tools, and the game info.   Maybe someday we'll meet in front of the NES for a game!

-pmaxx

[nightwulf]

But then it hit me.  The curveball attribute that is so often mentioned is NOT a single byte field.  It's actually a pair of half-byte values each with a different meaning.   The first value is how well the pitcher curves (righties curving left and lefties curving right) and the second value is how well they screwball (righties going right and lefties going left).   Each value is 1-16 (0-F).  

I hate you. Ok, so really I don't. Excellent work! My editor will be changed to incorporate the different data as soon as I can.

Also, one added comment for your editor, nightwulf.  It seems like you use some sort of frames (an IFRAME perhaps?) and the bottom of the left-hand frame gets cut off on my screen with no way for me to scroll down.  My laptop only does 1024x768 so maybe that's why.  Anyhow, not a big deal, but if you're digging in the code to fix something else, maybe you can fix that up also.

Actually, the entire editor was designed at 1024x768, so I'm a little surprised that it's cut off. I normally design at 1024x768 and make sure there's enough breathing room so that smaller resolutions won't choke. This is something I meant to fix, but actually hadn't thought about it the last couple of times I played with the code. The entire design (including the HTML work) was done on my linux box. The font sizes seem to scale differently in Windows. The fonts and sizes used appear much smaller on my browser in linux then they do in Windows. Scaling the font sizes down should fix this problem for you. I should have that done shortly.

Nightwulf

[MarquisEXB]

This is an awesome discovery! I've been wondering why some guys with very high curve values don't do as well as others. I'm going to have to revamp all my roms now. :-)  Too bad because I was near done with the 1970s one. It'll have to wait until I can work with this.

As for the 2 unknown - could it be that they are 4 single byte variables? How they are in the rom are interesting, because they are in the 105-150 range. Altho changing them to 255/0 yielded no visible results.

Mike
p.s. Nightwulf I messed with your editor & was very impressed!

[Beanball]

Nice find there.  I don't know how anyone else missed this one, especially myself.  The family stadium games have a similar format, except the curve attribues are 2 bytes.  So curves to the right or left of the plate are 00-ff and with ff the curves are obscene- usually crossing the plate 5 times.  Some other attributes also went from 2 digits fields to 1 in the transistion, but I never thought to check the curves.  Duh.

The only thing I can add is that the first number is how well the ball goes towards the lefty battters, the second is for how well it curves towards the righties.  It's separated by curve right/left rather than by curve/screw.

Nonetheless, thanks for finding this.  It certainly clears things up.

[sucka free]

pmaxx,

  We have one spot on our forum rbi team.   Your first post was an impressive one and I would like you to join the squad.  Plus you could help in creating the rom for DEE-NEE v. DAH-NAH

[Gantry]

Tremendous work pmaxx!  I am going to edit my team pages with the proper ratings and point to a FAQ question...

Question for all, do you guys like pmaxx's naming convention for these ratings, screwball and curve?  Are those standard baseball nomenclature?  

[B]

the screwball is the perfect name for it....thats exactly what it is....you guys are like louis and clark out there....

[Gantry]

Actually Beanball is right - the first byte is how much curve you have towards lefty batters and the 2nd is how much curve you have to righty batters.  So it's not based on arm...

So the next question goes, would you consider curve to a lefty  batter left curve?  It's actually curving to the right, but the pitcher's left...

[MarquisEXB]

Technically curve and screwball aren't the right terms in the way you're using them. A curve thrown by a righty curves in the same direction as a lefty throwing a screwball. So the same data bit would be a curve for righties and a screwball for lefties, and vice versa.

With that being said, I used the same terminology when trying to identify the data, but that's my right-handed centered world. It's not the worst thing in the world to use the terms in that sense with this simplistic game. However using curve left and curve right would be more accurate.

Mike
p.s. For those keeping track on the Dah-Nah team, I throw righty, but bat lefty. :-)

[Gantry]

I went with Curve Left (Cl) and Curve Right (Cr) on my team pages.  Only have Cali done now, but I've finally added Fastball/Regular/Slowball speeds and drop pitch.  Also made FAQ questions to them and linked the labels on the team pages...

Probably will do the other teams tomorrow, it's a pain in the ass to change all the tables.  Hand-editing HTML gets most cumbersome...

[pmaxx]

pmaxx,

  We have one spot on our forum rbi team.   Your first post was an impressive one and I would like you to join the squad.  Plus you could help in creating the rom for DEE-NEE v. DAH-NAH

hey,

i'm glad that i was able to help out the cause.  i don't know exactly what being a part of the forum rbi team entails, as i haven't really been keeping up with all the threads here.  explain it to me first and then i'll let you know..  

also, you guys are absolutely correct, the attributes are curve-left and curve-right.  for some reason i thought i switched a pitcher from righty to lefty and his curve switched, but i was kinda in a hurry that night and i must of missed something.  

anyhow, let me know about all the forum team dee-nee dah-nah stuff and i'll help out where i can.  

adios,
pmaxx