MAJOR ADDITIONS:
- Player Career Stats and Historical Season Data in Franchise Mode:
- New Player Career screen shows a player's season stats from the 10 most recent seasons, and career stats accumulated from the player's entire career (starting from the current season at the time this update is installed).
- View past season and all-time league leaders in home runs, RBIs, strikeouts, and more accumulated throughout the Franchise playthrough.
- View season standings and playoff brackets from the 10 most recent seasons.
- Practice Mode:
- Play an endless game where you choose to either always bat or always pitch.
- Pitchers do not tire, and players' Mojo and Fitness do not change during the game.
- Great way to prepare before being matched up in a Pennant Race or Online League game.
IMPROVEMENTS:
- AI batters are now slightly more affected by the pitcher's velocity and junk skills, and slightly less affected by the power pitch score and pitch location.
- AI batters are now more prone to being tricked by the break on the pitch, particularly when pitching at low Ego levels.
- The pitching reticle minigame is now more difficult, particularly at high pitching Ego levels.
- Following a fielder selection change, the player now has more time to react and control the newly selected fielder before the fielder slows down, particularly at high Ego levels.
- When a fielder misses a catch with the "!" above their head, there is now text underneath the character explaining the primary reason the catch was missed along with the odds that the catch was missed.
- Before the pitch is started, you can now queue runners to take off with the pitch delivery by holding R1 while giving steal commands. Using this feature, runners will get a bad jump but will still return safely on a pick-off attempt. Best used on hit & run attempts and full count, 2 out situations.
- With runners on 1B and 2B, you can now steal with only the runner at 2B by pressing L2.
- Passed ball and wild pitch rates have been adjusted, particularly to greatly reduce the odds of a missed catch on pitches in or near the strikezone, and on pitches where the reticle minigame ends up fairly close to the intended target.
- Fielding error odds have been tweaked slightly, particularly to reduce errors on balls that bounce in front of or near the fielder.
- Fielders with low Fielding skill now miss slightly more jumping, diving, and sliding catches.
- Ball deflection velocities following a missed catch have been tweaked.
- Pitchers now see slightly more comebackers get through them when the ball is hit hard enough.
- The pitcher is now more likely to drop a throw while running to tend a base, while other fielders are slightly less likely to drop a throw while running to tend a base.
- The pitcher can no longer receive a Mojo boost following a successful sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly by the opponent.
- AI baserunners are now slightly more willing to attempt a straight steal of 2B, and slightly less aggressive trying to score on a wild pitch or passed ball.
- AI will no longer use the Corners In infield defensive positioning in the last inning when ahead by more than one run.
- AI will no longer use the Infield In defensive positioning when facing a large run deficit.
- AI will now typically wait slightly longer before pulling their current pitcher when the rest of their bullpen is collectively tired.
- In Franchise mode, players are now extremely unlikely to retire before the age of 30, and more likely to retire at age 40+.
- In Franchise mode, age no longer affects the likelihood that a player resigns from their team at the end of a season. Players are now more likely to resign the longer it has been since they were a free agent.
- In Franchise mode, the sign and release logic used by the CPU-controlled teams has been updated. The CPU is now less eager to sign star players for very large salaries in the offseason, and more willing to sign players in general once their asking salary is significantly below their "fair" value.
- In Franchise mode, Player Development Opportunities have been tweaked to reduce the odds of acquiring a negative trait or losing a positive trait.
- In Franchise mode, the speed at which the news feed scrolls has been improved.
- At the start of Franchise mode, the initial asking salaries of some available players have been reduced.
- In Custom Franchise, Season, and Elimination modes, you can now set the starting lineups for each user-controlled team before watching or playing a game (even when the user-controlled team is currently being played by the AI).
- In Franchise, Season, and Elimination modes, the minimum number of plate appearances or innings pitched required to appear as a playoff league leader for a rate statistic (batting average, ERA, etc.) has been improved.
- When watching a CPU vs CPU game in Franchise, Season, or Elimination mode, you can now press the Simulate and Finish Later buttons in the pause menu in the middle of a play.
- Various other minor UI improvements have been made.
- When playing with keyboard and mouse controls, you can now throw to a base using the keyboard. The default keys are 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively.
ISSUES ADDRESSED:
- Fixed: A crash can occur in the logo editor when removing layers via the undo button.
- Fixed: The first baseman could be incorrectly selected initially on balls hit between 1B and 2B where the second baseman is the clear, preferred selection (similarly with the third baseman and shortstop).
- Fixed: Mojo and Fitness changes for Pennant Race do not update correctly based on team usage and win rates from previous races.
- Fixed: On the Pennant Race Standings screen, the "User Standings" for previous races can be incorrect.
- Fixed: Pitcher can be incorrectly selected initially on balls hit to the outfield.
- Fixed: Fielder selection does not always auto-switch when intended after a ball gets through the infield or after a catch is missed.
- Fixed: Movement input can refuse to switch to a better fielder when another fielder is close to the ball's trajectory, even though the other fielder has no reasonable chance at making a catch.
- Fixed: Some other rare fielder selection issues.
- Fixed: AI-controlled first basemen can wander too far to their right on ground balls to 2B when they should be tending 1B instead.
- Fixed: AI-controlled outfielders with weak arms could refuse to throw home when there was still a chance of making an out at home.
- Fixed: Baserunners too easily retreat safely back to 3B on a suicide squeeze attempt.
- Fixed: In online vs play, steal attempts can be incorrectly rejected following consecutive attempts after hitting foul balls.
- Fixed: Watch camera angles can remain on during Franchise and Season win cinematics.
- Fixed: Unusual or super fast pitch movement can occur in online play if the pause menu or chat wheel are open while the pitch is being delivered.
- Fixed: The "4 Dingers Would Have Been Better" achievement fails to unlock in some game modes.
- Fixed: Ticker tape does not fire after winning a game in Founder's Field, Big Sky Park, Lafayette Corner, or Tiger Den.
- Fixed: UI animations are affected by slow motion gameplay effects.
- Fixed: Text from an online partner or opponent can be unnecessarily censored when it does not need to be on some platforms (for example, Jack Cracker's last name is unnecessarily censored in some cases).
- Fixed: Making lineup changes to a Standard team in Pennant Race or Online Leagues marks the team as visually customized, leading to various incorrect UI elements and text being shown in various parts of the game.
- Fixed: In Pennant Race and Online Leagues, after an opponent forfeits or disconnects, the game often fails to present the post-game stats and three stars.
- Fixed: Pennant Race and Online League match results can fail to record when a disconnect occurs before the game starts in some cases.
- Fixed: Crash in online versus play when trying to leave the game from the pause menu immediately after letting the substitution timer expire.
- Fixed: Crash when a friend joins for party-based online play while on the Exhibition pre-game lineup screen.
- Fixed: In Franchise mode, a crash can occur after entering the offseason and scrolling the news feed to a retired player.
- Fixed: In Franchise, Season, and Elimination modes, team stats for position players failed to appear in rare cases if the underlying league structure had been changed at some point in the league editor.
- Fixed: In Franchise mode, at the start of the offseason, newly generated rookie free agents would lose their traits after the first negotiation round.
- Fixed: In Franchise mode, the AI would never sign a player that was just released, leading to a player salary reduction exploit.
- Fixed: In Franchise mode, the league leaders tables for rate statistics (batting average, ERA, etc.) do not always correctly filter out players that fall short of the minimum plate appearances or innings pitched requirement.
- Fixed: In Franchise, Season, and Elimination modes, a save is not triggered after simulating games.
- Fixed: In Pennant Race, the spinner on the Team Stats tab in Team Hub is disabled, making it impossible to view stats from previous races.
- Fixed: The Roster tab in Team Hub does not always default sort starting pitchers by their starting rotation order.
- Fixed: While batting, black teeth can be seen on pitchers with certain personality types.
- Fixed: Helmet ear flap can disappear / appear on the incorrect side and helment logo can appear mirrored on some players from certain camera angles.
- Fixed: Ball hitting yellow line on right-center field wall in Big Sky could be incorrectly ruled a home run.
- Fixed: A foul ball could be ruled prematurely in Lafayette Corner on catchable fly balls that travel straight over seating sections.
- Fixed: Incorrect piping on jersey 11 and jersey 17 for some body types.
- Fixed: In online versus play, the pitching timer can fail to reappear after returning to the game from the substitution menu.
- Fixed: In Pennant Race, the wrong Class (Legendary, All-Star, Pro, etc.) was sometimes shown when viewing another player's game history.
- Fixed: In Online Leagues, the match against specific opponent feature could fail in rare cases.
- Fixed: Baserunning and fielding sound effects can carry over into the front end after an opponent forfeits or disconnects from an online match.
- Fixed: In Franchise mode, the Pressure meter behaves the same in both regular season and playoff games. Pressure should tend to be higher in the playoffs like it does in Season and Elimination modes.
- Fixed: Miscellaneous corrections to UI and help content images.
- Fixed: In Online Leagues that allow keyboard and mouse controls, a pop-up might incorrectly appear saying that the player is not allowed to continue with keyboard and mouse controls.
