Diamond Dynasty Handbook

March 8, 2012

What is Diamond Dynasty?

Diamond Dynasty allows you to create a team from scratch by customizing your team’s location, name, colors, uniforms, and logos, all of which can be edited freely at anytime.  Once, created, the team is given a handful of MLB baseball cards and Dynasty baseball cards that, when activated, add the players to your team roster.

The fundamentals of Diamond Dynasty revolve around the difference between MLB and dynasty cards the unique systems that support each type.

A Dynasty player is a long-term investment that requires training similar to that of the ‘Road to the Show‘ player.  Dynasty players come with between 35 and 45 games available.  Each Dynasty player has an “aptitude” rating that will affect how much it costs to train him.  Dynasty players are supplemented with an award/achievement system that unlocks unique uniform patches.

MLB players are short-term investments that slot into your roster ready to play at their current attribute levels.  MLB players always come with 10 games available and cannot be trained.  Completing collections of MLB players will reward you with budget bonuses.  Budget is used to train your players, purchase card packs (Dynasty or MLB), and purchase cards from other users.  Most of your budget is earned by playing either head-to-head online games, or vs. CPU against MLB teams.  Head-to-head games are matched and ranked using an ELO rating system that most competitive online games now use in some form.

Every fifth game played, your team is reevaluated for placement into one of five competitive divisions in Diamond Dynasty, Spring Training, Season Series, Division Series, Championship Series, and World Series.

Training
Training is unique to Dynasty player types.  MLB players cannot be trained.  All training is done from the ‘Training’ screen, found from the Diamond Dynasty Home.

Training Costs
Training a player costs budget.  The budget cost to increase an attribute is listed next to the attribute.  Training costs are determined by a number of inputs; Aptitude, Position, current attribute level, and recent training history.  The higher a players Aptitude, the lower his training costs.  Specific Attribute costs vary depending on the position of the player being trained.  For example, it costs less to train a catcher in blocking than an outfielder, because blocking is a more important attribute for catchers.  The higher an attribute gets, the more expensive it is to increase it.  Lastly, if you train a player excessively in a short period of time, it will cost more to train him due to exhaustion.

Managing Your Team

Most management aspects of Diamond Dynasty take place in the three screens: Manage Roster, Lineups, and Pitching Rotation.

Each teams roster consisted of a mandatory 25-man roster, and an optional 15-man reserve roster, totaling to a maximum of 40 players you can have on your roster at any given time.  Pressing X on a player will bring up the list of management options.  This list is where you Release players or Move them between the Active and Reserve roster.  Releasing a player removes him from your roster permanently and is irreversible.  Sort and Generate Lineups are also among the options in the list.  The Sort option simply reorganizes your roster list by the column currently selected.  Generate Lineups will automatically readjust your Lineups and Pitching Rotation.  If you encounter an invalid roster message, Generate Lineups can often timed be utilized for an easy fix.

You can have up to 100 total cards at any given time.

Activating A Card
To activate a card onto your roster, simply press X on the card and choose the “Activate Card to Roster” option.  If the card activated is an MLB card, it will be added to your collections.  Once activated, a card is removed from your inventory and no longer redeemable.

You can have a maximum of 40 players (25 active, 15 inactive) at anytime.  If you already have 40 players on your roster, you will not be able to activate any cards onto your roster until you release a player or a player expires.  Note:  You can release a player by pressing X on them from the Manage Roster screen and selecting the “Release” option.

Card Recycler
If you don’t intend to activate or sell a card, you can recycle it.  Between 2 and 5 cards can be recycled for a random card of equivalent value and type.  If MLB cards are recycled, they will still count towards your collections.

 Buying and Selling Cards

The Buy/Sell/Manage Cards screen allows you to buy Card Packs, Buy Dynasty or MLB cards, and Sell cards.

Buying Card Packs
Find the “Buy Card Packs” screen from Diamond Dynasty Home.  L1 and R1 tab between Dynasty and MLB packs, and X prompts you to choose your payment method.  You can purchase packs with your teams Budget, or with Credits purchased at the PS store.  Once, purchased, the pack will instantly be opened and display what cards your received.  Any additional management of the cards can be done from “Buy/Sell/Manage Cards”.

Buying Individual MLB Cards
If you are looking for particular MLB players, press X anywhere in the “Buy/Sell/Manage Cards” screen and select “Buy MLB Players”.  Initially, you’ll see a master list of all the MLB players and the lowest prices someone is currently willing to sell them for.  You can filter the list by pressing triangle and choosing the overall range, position, and team of the player you’re looking for.  Press X on a player and you’ll be prompted to either buy them instantly at the current price, or if that price isn’t low enough for you, create a Buy Order.  Creating a Buy order will post a listing for the player you wish to buy and deduct and attach the amount of Budget you are willing to pay.  Players who go to sell that card will see your listing and be able to sell the card directly to you for the amount you’ve offered.

Buying Individual Dynasty Cards
if you are looking for a particular Dynasty player types, press X anywhere in the “Buy/Sell/Manage Cards” screen and select “Buy Dynasty Players”.  Initially, you’ll see a master list of all the Dynasty players that are currently listed for sale.  Press Triangle to filter the list with more specific details of what you’re looking for.  Press X on a player and you’ll be prompted to either buy them instantly at the current price or create a Buy Order.  Creating a Buy Order for a Dynasty Player is a three-step process that will narrow down what exactly you’re looking for.  When finalized, you’re order will be listed and the Budget you are willing to pay will be deducted and attached to the listing.  Anyone looking to sell a card that fits your listing may sell the card to you instantly for the amount you posted.

Selling Cards
If you want to sell a card, you do so by pressing X on the card and choosing the Sell Card option.  Initially, you will see a market Value Comparison that displays similar cards listed for sale on top, and Buy orders this card could instantly fill on the bottom.  To create a Sell Order, press X and choose Accept.  You card will be removed from your inventory and listed for sell.  If your order is filled, you will automatically receive budget in the amount of the sale.

Budget and Credits

Budget
Playing games or completing MLB Collections earns your team Budget.  Budget is used to purchase card packs, individual cards on the market, or train players.

Credits
Credits are purchased through the PlayStation store.  Credits are used to purchase card packs.  To purchase Credits, press Select to access the Hotbar and choose the shopping bag icon.

Play Now – Head to Head
Head to head play is a user versus another user over an internet connection.

In general, Head to Head games reward more Budget than Play vs. CPU games.  unlike Play vs. CPU games, all head to head games are matched and ranked based on team Rating.  When the game is finished, each team’s Rating will be adjusted.  The winning team’s Rating will increase and the losing team’s Rating will decrease.  The amount team Ratings increase and decrease is determined by the Ratings of the two teams entering the game.  Higher rated teams are expected to win so may have more to lose when playing lower rated teams.  the algorithm used is based on the ELO rating system that most competitive online games now used in some form.

Play Now – Play vs. CPU
Play vs. CPU games pit your Diamond Dynasty team against real MLB teams at their home stadiums.  Beating an MLB team will earn your team Budget and permanently unlock the MLB team’s stadium for use in head to head play.

The amount of budget earned for beating an MLB team is determined by the difficulty you choose to play against on the Play vs. CPU team selection screen.  Press L1 and R1 to adjust the difficulty.  Observe that some teams yield a better bounty due to their roster strength.  Losing a game will always yield the same budget reward regardless of what difficulty you choose.

Unlike head to head games, Play vs. CPU games do not affect a team’s rating or individual players’ rating.  Statistics however, are tracked no matter what type of game you are playing.

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Stratomatic Baseball

I think most would agree that it can sometimes be a bit of a headache to read the play by play accounts on the box score pages. It’s especially difficult to keep track of who is currently pitching as you read down the play by play account.  Also, you sort of need a little bit of knowledge on whether or not a player is left or right handed.

Now, play by play account viewing is a lot more enjoyable with this new script.  Take a look at the features below:

1.  Player names are now shaded in blue if they are left handed and pink if they are right handed.  Also, I changed the player names into hyperlinks to their player cards.

Note:  Some players have the same name so they need to be handled a bit differently.  I’ve included hyperlinks for all duplicate names.  In the 2010 set, for example, ‘C.Lee’ could be either Cliff Lee or Carlos Lee.  So, next to C.Lee you’ll find two links numberered 1 & 2.  There’s really no easy way for the script to find exactly which C.Lee is being used in the game so this method will do for now.

2.  Clutch situations are now in “dark orange“.

3.  When Pitch Count Fatigue level gets below F9 the color changes to red.

4.  Ball Park (BPHR/BPOUTS) results appear at the bottom of the play account.  This only applies in the 2010 set.

5.  Pitcher roll percent totals also appear at the bottom.  This only applies in the 2010 set.

The script will currently work with the 2010 and Back to the ’90s player sets.  I was hoping to add All-Time Greats VI but that player list is way too large for me to handle right now.  Hopefully I can add ATG6 sometime in the near future.

Download Stratomatic Enhanced Play by Play Account

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In the Back to the 90′s game the player card years are revealed a few days after the Finals have completed.  It’s interesting to go through your team at the end of the year to see what kind of cards you actually had.  I usually tend to go through the roster once and then I’m done with that team.  I haven’t really delved into any additional analysis until now.  I wrote a new script to do most of this work for me.  Here is what the script will do:

On each team page, red stars (rated 1 to 5) are added next to each player to indicate whether it was their good year or worst year.  For pitchers these ratings are based on their “WHIPERA”.  The year with the lowest WHIPERA gets five stars.  The year with the highest WHIPERA gets one star.  For batters, the ratings are based on their OPS.

These five star visuals are really helpful especially when you can see everything on the same page.  The stars will also appear on the Free Agent page.

Stratomatic Baseball

Also on each team page I added an after season team analysis with three sections:

1.  Dropped Player Points – Points awarded based on the ratings of players dropped. e.g. five points awarded to one star players and 1 point awarded to five star players. Average is then divided by 20. Most points possible is 100.

2.  Five Star Players — Number of five star players currently on roster.

3.  “Lucky” Points — Points awarded based on the ratings of players who participated on the team. e.g. Five points awarded to five star players and one point awarded to one star players. Average is then divided by 20. Most points possible is 100.

These results are a bit primitive so it’s not the definitive answer on determining how you actually did as a manager but I think it’s good starting point for the initial release of the script.

Stratomatic Baseball

Download Stratomatic Back to the 90′s Team Analyzer

 

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Stratomatic Box Score Search

September 12, 2011

Stratomatic

Last year in the Strat-O-Matic 90′s keep track of Mystery Cards script I added a View Injuries button to ‘Team Schedule and Results’ page.  Now, I’ve created a new script based on that feature.  With this new script, I’ve added a Search dropdown to the Team Schedule and Results pages.

Now, you can search for the following:

INJURY: – Very handy in Mystery Card games.
Int Walk – Also very handy in Mystery Card games.
Sac Bunt – With the 12 team league format, most teams have All-Star lineups so Sac bunts should be used sparingly.  With this search, I can make sure Sac Bunts are kept at a minimum.
sqz – See Sac Bunts above.
Pickoff – These are costly and should be kept at a minimum.  If runners are getting picked off too often one might consider setting the ‘Don’t Steal’ checkbox.
Other Double Plays – I originally wanted to find a way to search for Outfield Assists but I’m not exactly certain how to find these.  For now, this search will help find some of these outfield assists.
Ground Out Double Play – Didn’t really need to add this but might as well offer a way to find all kinds of double plays.
SUBSTITUTE PH – In the Mystery Card games finding out who HAL likes to use as a pinch hitter might reveal a decent or good card.
Caught Stealing – This can help determine if runners are attempting to steal in the right situations.  I can probably add a search for Stolen Bases in the future.
h&r – See Caught Stealing.  This search option doesn’t apply to Mystery Card Games so it will be greyed out.
bpHR Chances – Will find all bpHR chances whether they are sucessfull or not.  Greyed out in Mystery Card Games.
bpSI Chances – Greyed out in Mystery Card Games.

Download Stratomatic Box Score Search

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Stratomatic

If you are a busy manager like I am and sometimes don’t have the time to analyze your next opponent then this script is for you!  This script will show additional details about your next opponent on the Front Office page.  The same information also appears on all Sim L/R splits pages.

Probable LHBs/RHBs in lineup
One of the most important aspects of analyzing an upcoming opponent is being able to match-up with their lineup.  Ideally as a manager, you can gather this information by reviewing the opponent’s box scores of previous games.  This can be a daunting task, especially if you can’t remember if a player is a left-handed, right-handed, or a switch hitter.  Another way is to find this information is to take a guess at the everyday players by viewing how many at bats they have on the opponents team page.  This script will help gather this information.  The Probable LHBs/RHBs in lineup category is determined by a combination of the number of at bats a player accumulated and their player salary.  Chances are a player with more at bats and/or higher salary is most likely to be in the starting lineup.  This info may not always be accurate but it’s a helpful aide.

Injuries
Displays the number of players currently injured.

OPS vs L/R
Determining your opponent’s strength against left handed pitchers versus right handed pitchers is also important.  If you find that your opponent is strong against lefties you might want to spot start a RHP.  This category calculates the opponent’s OPS by adding up the OBP and SLG on the opponent’s splits page.

AVG Hitter Balance/Prorated Balance
The script will sort the 9 batters that are expected to be in the starting lineup and determine the average hitter balance.  The Prorated balance column is based on the batter’s salary.  These categories may not be as valuable as the OPS but may help a manager with their starting and Relief pitcher settings.

Another added feature is it will display the opponents probable starting pitcher balance.  If you’re playing a Mystery Card game, such as Back to the ’90s, mouse over your opponent’s starting pitcher to view his Home Runs and Opponent Average against left and right-handed batters.

Stratomatic

Download Stratomatic Analyze Next Opponent

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