My Bug List

[CHawkFan]

I bought HH2K about 3 weeks ago, as it claimed to accomodate "manage-only" players [like me], which many games don't do.

I play with a Pentium 200 MMX Packard Bell PC, with a Voodoo2 1000 card, and while I haven't had any game crashes to speak of, when I come back from the "team options" menu for changing pitchers or something, the first batter or so, the action is briefly frozen.

Here are some of the main recurring bugs I've run into during my 25 or so games of "manage-only" league play with the Reds, primarily on the "Pro" level:

* I've virtually abandoned trying to do successful sac bunts and hit-n-runs, as the former almost always ends up in a FC, and the latter mostly results in caught stealings or weak grounders up the middle for DPs. IMO, you're actually better off not even trying a hit-n-run or sac bunt the way the game is now;

* Baserunning is hopeless. For example, my runners on second OR THIRD almost never score on singles OR DOUBLES; I've had runners at third thrown out at home on line drive base hits to the OF; I've had baserunners steal bases ON THEIR OWN; runners on second never advance to third on grounders to the right side. The net effect of all this is that without hitting HRs, it's almost impossible to score any runs in this game because the CPU finds new and different ways to put your lead runner out or keep him from scoring;

* Pitchers get WAY too many hits, including extra base hits. The way the game is, there isn't much difference between facing them and the positon players;

* I've had serious problems with the expanded box scores. Not only does it cut off player names [and stats] for long box scores, but the box score is almost never correct, as it usually adds ABs and hits to players that they never had in the game. I double check the box score with the meticulous scoresheet that I always keep for every league game, and it's a mess. I wonder how this would effect the accuracy of the stats over a 162 game schedule. And like most PC sims, this game has big trouble telling what is and is not an unearned run;

* Team option screen--numerous times when I've gone to change a pitcher, the name of the reliever I had warming up mysteriously disppears from the warmup box. I've gotten around this by temporarily putting a starter's name in the game, going back to the game screen, and coming back and seeing the reliever's name back in the list of pitchers, and putting him in the game cold.

* Several times, I've had a PC foe pinch hit for its pitcher, and the next inning, the same pitcher is still out on the mound!

* I have had the PC give my team an out between batters for no apparent reason!;

* Like most PC baseball sims, this one has the usual high amount of singles high off the top of the OF wall.

Sorry to take up so much space, but maybe other gamers have run into some of these same bugs. And I'm not trying to trash the game, as I think it has real potential to be a big hit, even among "manage-only" types.

BUT...as long as the kind of flaws that I've mentioned above go uncorrected, the game really isn't worth playing if you value the integrity of stats and playing genuinely competitive games. It is very difficult to even be competitive against the CPU the way the baserunning problems are, especially when you play a team [like I do] that needs to play some "littleball" to score runs.

--Jeff, still waiting for 50-HR Greg Vaughn to hits his first HR after 23 games and 83 ABs...

[Iceblink]

Overall, I'm happy with the game - as a product, its quality is better than average. There's a difference between bugs & flaws in the gameplay. I grabbed the tune file off this site and it's now much easier to steal bases. Pitchers do hit too well, and bunts are indeed useless.

The most infuriating aspect of the game is that it manages my roster, even when the auto manage option is turned off. I just had it RELEASE my leadoff guy, who's hitting .330 and has 50 SB at the end of June. It just released him while it was simming games. It also sent down 2 guys who were doing fine and called up 2 others for no real reason. It also switches my 1B (Henry Rodriguez) & my LF (Shawn Green) after a few games, no matter how many times I set the lineup like I want it.

Anyone got an email address from 3do? All I saw was a bug report email (ie - the game is crashing, here's my hardware & what it does). All I want is for the computer to not touch my roster AT ALL...not ONCE. If I own the team, and I've selected to manage all of my rosters, DON'T TOUCH THE ROSTERS - DON'T EVER TOUCH MY ROSTERS.

Thanks.

[administrator]

I really haven't experienced all the difficulties that CHawkFan has, but I agree that if a game has so many big problems in key areas, why play it. I just continually found myself getting iritated at the computer. Triple Play 2000 may not have as solid a base as High Heat 2000, but at least it doesn't have as many structural bugs.

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"Hey, let's play two"
-Ernie Banks

[Iceblink]

The roster management thing is now the 2nd most irritating occurrence. The new #1 is (and this has happened three times now) when a player disappears. I don't mean retires, or is cut by some phantom GM (even though I own the team - which has happened). The guy just vanished. Not on my roster, not on anyone's roster, not in the free agent pool. I'm waiting on a patch before I play again. Shame, too, it's a fun game.

[administrator]

Are you sure the players isn't on another team's roster? I've had players disappear on my team on numerous occassions. Sometimes they won't re-surface until the next year, but so far, I've been able to find all the players that have in the past disappeared off my roster.

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"Hey, let's play two"
-Ernie Banks

[razorbak88]

Admin, Ice is right. Players do indeed vanish, never to be seen again. It has to do with a bug in which the computer automatically rearranges rosters if there are not 25 players on all of your teams at all levels (you must adjust immediately when injuries happen or your players will get zapped).


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Blue Jay fanatic livin amongst Padres.

[razorbak88]

By the way, there seems to be a consensus among fans (believe it or not, this game does have fans), there are well over 100 bugs in the current version. One of the boards had a post which listed bugs which were to be addressed in the patch. That is bugs the programmers admitted they were working to eliminate with a patch. It was a LOOOONNNNGGGG list and considering it only listed OFFICIAL bugs, I have no problem believing there are 100+.


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Blue Jay fanatic livin amongst Padres.

[razorbak88]

Iceblink -- 'team.366@3do.com'
Good luck.

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Blue Jay fanatic livin amongst Padres.

[CHawkFan]

I agree with Iceblink about waiting for the patch before I play again. The problem is that for me, the #1 biggest problem with the game is the inability to advance baserunners by ordinary means [runners at 2B/3B scoring on doubles, taking 2 bases on singles where the OFer has to run far to get the ball, going from 2B to 3B on weak grounders to the right side, bunts, and hit-n-runs to name a few]. For a team without much HR power, this is absolutely critical to scoring enough runs to play competitive games. I'm not sure whether this problem can be addressed by a patch, or if it's just flawed AI. I've already got the new tune file, and it helped with stealing bases, but nothing else. If the patch doesn't help the above problems, I may have to search for another game which accomodates "manage-only," but has some kind of decent graphics. Can you say "snowball's chance in Hades?" :&gt Or perhaps a non-graphic game like "Pursue the Pennant" [I forget the new name of the series after they changed it].

--Jeff

[Iceblink]

Thanks, Razor.

[paladin]

I wandered here accidentaly while finding (or trying to find) a patch for HH2k, and I couldn't help but notice Razorbak's message below mentioning a bug with injuries. I just had a very unusual encounter with an injury or two, so here they are.

In my Cubs season late April, Mark Grace went on the 2 day DL. Upon his return, my best hitter (Sandy Martinez .588 in 36 ab's) vanished to nothingness. I didn't save and tried again. This time I manually took Grace off the DL and did all the necessary flip-flopping to get a 25man roster. Now I got my team back to normal and Martinez is hitting over .600 (leaving Benito Santiago .190 and out of a job)

The above injury bug is semi-tolerable because I could repair the damage and go to my season as usual. When an injury occured to an opponent, that became untolerable (yet kinda funny). Grace was just off the DL, the roster's back to normal, and we're playing the Mets. Sammy's 2 for 2, both 400' bombs. Now the situation...

Lance Johnson just doubled. Mickey Morandini then flys to Bobby Bonilla in right. He makes the routine catch, but is injured on the play. The camera panned over to show him sitting in right while a new fielder is announced. The announced name was "Terry Adams" (one of my bullpen arms) but the screen name was some Mets player.
The camera is STILL on the injured Bonilla, when I hear the ump yell "ball". It hasn't gone back to the plate view! To top it all, Morandini is the new batter, not Sosa! (at least that's what the name said) After ump yelled strike, I hit pause to change the camera view. I come back to still see Bonilla sitting, while Mickey takes a strike. I hit pause, and set auto batting, since I couldn't hit anyway. Morandini grounded out to first and the inning ended. The camera panned to show the fielders return to the dugout. I thought the problem was fixed, but as the next inning started, all hell broke loose. First, the camera stayed fixed on the Mets dugout, while the computer made a pitching change and 3 fielding changes! Bonilla replaced the new RF, only to be replaced by a different RF, only to be replaced by Bonilla again! And the announcer kept saying "Terry Adams in to replace Terry Adams." I hit pause to figure out what to do, only to see that my lineup card had changed! It was the original starting lineup, BEFORE I replaced Santiago with Martinez, and made other order changes.

Fed up, I quit the game (there goes Sammy's 2 homers) and went searching for a patch. 3DO's site says there are no patches available. So I came across this msg board and decided to let out some steam.

Thanks for listening (sorry if it's long)

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"Swing 'n' a miss, strike 3!" -Pat Hughes of Cubs radio