by Treyomo » Fri Aug 04, 2006 10:14 am
Michael -
I would agree that the swings based on ballpark ratings can make this game maddening at times. But I think that's partially our fault and partially business reality. Bear with me:
My understanding is that Hal designed Strat-o-matic for team vs team competition, either in the same year or era vs. era. Stratomatic was not designed for assembling all-star teams over all eras, grabbing players from 80 years worth of baseball who would best take advantage of a single stadium's ratings. For example, the number of BPHRs on a 1906 player's card makes no sense when playing in a stadium with 1927 stadium ratings. Same with 1968 pitchers being plunked in a 1987 stadium. The games were so different between years that the ballpark ratings for players don't match up with the ballpark rating for stadiums used in a different year/era.
My other understanding is that part of TSN's licensing agreement with Strat-o-Matic is that they can't mess with the cards in any way, shape or form. The card changes we see in ATGIII comes from converting certain teams to the super advanced set, not from TSN's arbitrary adjustments to make the game play more realistically.
I'm in total agreement with you that some sort of moderation in BP ratings would make the game more realistic and less unbalanced. But I also believe that it cannot be done, because of both licensing and the inconceivable time it would take to recalculate thousands of cards (because you'd have to review both the players and the stadiums). This is one of the quirks of the online game that make it a different challenge from the board game.