MVPEdit Pro (a modern roster editor)

[Kccitystar]

Hey everyone,
 

Figured it was time to finally put this out there.
 

After being away from active MVP modding for a long while, I’ve been slowly working on a new roster editor I'm calling "MVPEdit Pro" and I wanted to start a public thread to document progress and, more importantly, get community input early rather than disappearing into a cave with a box of scraps and popping back up with a “ta-da” like I'm Tony Stark...

 

First, some context:
 

A quick nod to MVPEdit

Anyone who’s touched MVP rosters seriously knows rglass95’s MVPEdit. It was the tool. Simple, fast, and powerful for its time, and it’s a huge part of why the modding scene lasted as long as it did. For a 2006-era Windows app, it punched way, WAY above its weight.
 

At the same time, MVPEdit was very much a product of its era:

• Minimal UI structure
• Few keyboard shortcuts
• No guardrails, it basically trusted the user to know what they were doing
• A lot of roster “best practices” lived in forum posts, spreadsheets, or people’s heads
• Very unforgiving with a lack of a save feature, so a lot of your changes were "first draft, final draft"

 

None of that is a knock at all, that’s just how tools were built back then.

 

What MVPEdit Pro is (and isn’t)

MVPEdit Pro is not about replacing MVPEdit’s core functionality or reinventing roster editing from scratch. If you’ve edited rosters before, everything you’re used to doing should still feel familiar with additional moments of "well yeah, that makes sense".  This comparison lands for me and should help you understand what my intent is:

• MVPEdit is basically the metal cleats we were all wearing in 2006. It did the job, gave you great traction, and nobody questioned it because...that’s just what you wore back then. The problem was, one bad step and your ankle's rolled. Now you're out for the season.
• MVPEdit Pro (at least how I'm conceptualizing it) is going to be designed more like the modern molded cleats players wear now. Same game, same field, same fundamentals, but lighter, more forgiving, better support, and a lot easier on your legs over a long season. You’re not looking to change how baseball is played, just using better equipment for the field.

Think of it as:

• An evolution vs a rewrite
• Old-school MVP logic with modern workflows
• The same power, but with better visibility and fewer "well, shit” moments

This has been some of my guiding goals so far. My north star, pretty much:

• The ability to undo, redo, copy, paste and cut, etc.
• A cleaner, more structured UI
• Proper keyboard shortcuts (seriously, this alone changes everything)
• Better organization of tools and views
• Making it easier to see what you’re editing and why
• Giving you the opportunity to make changes and be asked to confirm them. Nothing you work on should be final until you say so (by saving).
   

Under the hood, I’m also exploring ways to make the editor a little smarter too, not by taking control away, but by helping surface issues before they become problems. Warnings instead of hard stops. Suggestions instead of forced rules. You’re still the one making the call.

 

Why this thread exists

I don't want it to be just a progress log. I want this thread to be:

• A place to show what’s working and what’s still rough
• A place for feedback on what you actually want out of a modern editor
• A space to talk about workflows that were always clunky and could be better now
   

If there are things you loved about MVPEdit, I'll do my best to preserve them. If there are things you worked around for years and just accepted as part of the old tool, I want to hear about those too.

 

Current state

The editor is still very much in progress, but the foundation is there and actively being built on. A big step the last couple of days has been cracking the historical stats table which was entirely different from the rest of the data tables in the game, but everything else is easy to translate and map within the tool as I design it, which is great because I can iterate pretty quickly. As things stabilize, I’ll start sharing screenshots and specific feature updates rather than vague promises. For now, this thread is more just about direction vs hype.

If you’ve been modding MVP for years using MVPEdit or even if you’re someone who always wanted to but bounced off the tools, I’d really value your input in shaping the editor to be what it can be for all of you.
 

Glad to be back messing with this game again. Some things never leave your system.

-KC

[alfre2jose]

Amazing, best news!! It will be a game changer for roster editing if it can have some kind of function to integrate the batting/pitching calculators' outputs (or a way to convert large datasets of stats into at least raw ratings). Will be following this topic with much joy.

[ArgelRd]

Hace 4 horas, Kccitystar dijo:

Hola a todos,
 

Pensé que ya era hora de finalmente publicar esto.
 

Después de estar lejos del modding activo de MVP por un largo tiempo, he estado trabajando lentamente en un nuevo editor de listas que llamo "MVPEdit Pro" y quería iniciar un hilo público para documentar el progreso y, lo que es más importante, obtener aportes de la comunidad temprano en lugar de desaparecer en una cueva con una caja de restos y volver a aparecer con un "ta-da" como si fuera Tony Stark...

 

Primero, un poco de contexto:
 

Un rápido guiño a MVPEdit

Cualquiera que haya jugado con las listas de MVP conoce de verdad MVPEdit de rglass95. Era la herramienta perfecta. Simple, rápido y potente para su época, y es una de las razones principales por las que la escena del modding perduró tanto. Para una aplicación de Windows de 2006, superó con creces sus expectativas.
 

Al mismo tiempo, MVPEdit fue en gran medida un producto de su época:

• Estructura de interfaz de usuario mínima
• Algunos atajos de teclado
• Sin barandillas, básicamente confiaba en que el usuario supiera lo que estaba haciendo.
• Muchas de las "mejores prácticas" de la lista se encontraban en publicaciones de foros, hojas de cálculo o en la mente de las personas.
• Muy implacable con la falta de una función de guardado, por lo que muchos de sus cambios fueron "primer borrador, borrador final".

 

Nada de esto es una crítica en absoluto, simplemente así es como se construyeron las herramientas en aquel entonces.

 

Qué es (y qué no es) MVPEdit Pro

MVPEdit Pro no pretende reemplazar la funcionalidad principal de MVPEdit ni reinventar la edición de plantillas desde cero. Si ya has editado plantillas, todo lo que estás acostumbrado a hacer te resultará familiar, con momentos adicionales de "sí, eso tiene sentido". Esta comparación me resulta útil y debería ayudarte a entender mi intención:

• MVPEdit son básicamente los tacos metálicos que todos usábamos en 2006. Cumplían su función, daban gran tracción, y nadie los cuestionaba porque... eso era lo que se usaba en aquel entonces. El problema era que, con un mal paso, te torcías el tobillo. Ahora estás fuera por el resto de la temporada.
• MVPEdit Pro  (al menos así lo concibo) tendrá un diseño más parecido a los tacos moldeados modernos que usan los jugadores. El mismo juego, el mismo campo, los mismos fundamentos, pero más ligeros, más tolerantes, con mejor sujeción y mucho más cómodos para las piernas durante una temporada larga. No buscamos cambiar la forma en que se juega al béisbol, solo usar mejor equipamiento para el campo.

Piénsalo así:

• Una evolución vs una reescritura
• Lógica MVP de la vieja escuela con flujos de trabajo modernos
• La misma potencia, pero con mejor visibilidad y menos momentos de "bueno, mierda".

Estos han sido algunos de mis objetivos hasta ahora. Mi norte, básicamente:

• La capacidad de deshacer, rehacer, copiar, pegar y cortar, etc.
• Una interfaz de usuario más limpia y estructurada.
• Atajos de teclado adecuados (en serio, esto solo lo cambia todo)
• Mejor organización de herramientas y vistas.
• Hacer que sea más fácil ver qué estás editando y por qué
• Te da la oportunidad de hacer cambios y que se te pida que los confirmes . Nada en lo que trabajes será definitivo hasta que lo indique (al guardar).
   

En segundo plano, también estoy explorando maneras de hacer que el editor sea un poco más inteligente, no quitándole el control, sino ayudando a detectar los problemas antes de que se conviertan en problemas. Advertencias en lugar de restricciones. Sugerencias en lugar de reglas impuestas. Tú sigues siendo quien toma las decisiones.

 

¿Por qué existe este hilo?

No quiero que sea solo un registro de progreso. Quiero que este hilo sea:

• Un lugar para mostrar lo que funciona y lo que aún está en proceso.
• Un lugar para recibir comentarios sobre lo que realmente espera de un editor moderno
• Un espacio para hablar sobre flujos de trabajo que siempre fueron torpes y que ahora podrían ser mejores.
   

Si hay cosas que te encantaron de MVPEdit, haré todo lo posible por conservarlas. Si hay cosas con las que trabajaste durante años y simplemente las aceptas como parte de la herramienta anterior, también quiero saberlo.

 

Estado actual

El editor aún está en pleno desarrollo, pero la base ya está ahí y se está construyendo activamente. Un gran paso en los últimos días ha sido descifrar la tabla de estadísticas históricas, que era completamente diferente del resto de las tablas de datos del juego. Sin embargo, todo lo demás es fácil de traducir y mapear dentro de la herramienta a medida que lo diseño, lo cual es genial porque puedo iterar con bastante rapidez. A medida que la situación se estabilice, empezaré a capturas de pantalla y actualizaciones de funciones específicas en lugar de compartir promesas vagas. Por ahora, este hilo trata más sobre la dirección que sobre la expectativa.

Si llevas años modeando MVP usando MVPEdit, o incluso si siempre has querido hacerlo pero te has deshecho de las herramientas, agradecería mucho tu aportación para adaptar el editor a lo que puede ser para todos vosotros.
 

Me alegra volver a jugar a este juego. Hay cosas que nunca se te van del sistema.

-KC

 

What I'm reading is great, it takes me a long time to make a well-made roster and sometimes it doesn't end. It would be good to support each other and have a WhatsApp or Telegram group where we discuss the topic and the work we are achieving, all in order to have a good base for the roster.

[Kccitystar]

8 minutes ago, alfre2jose said:

Amazing, best news!! It will be a game changer for roster editing if it can have some kind of function to integrate the batting/pitching calculators' outputs (or a way to convert large datasets of stats into at least raw ratings). Will be following this topic with much joy.

 

Like how the old editor used the Lahman Database?

[Jim825]

Here are some things I'm thinking about as I read this exciting news about MVPEdit Pro.

 

Integration of Lahman Database

 

For historical rosters, like the ones I create in the Total Classics mods, my first step is importing teams from the Lahman database.  Will the Lahman Database be integrated in MVPEdit Pro?  At a minimum, the version included with the current MVPEdit, which is current through 2005, could be used, as it is a standalone file in the MVPEdit folder.

 

Ability to read existing MBE files into MVPEdit Pro

 

Do you envision MVPEdit Pro being able to import MBE files created with MVPEdit?  If the Lahman database is not included with MVPEdit Pro, I could see myself creating a Total Classic MBE file with with MVPEdit and then import it into MVPEdit Pro and continue working on the roster there.

 

Additional functionality

 

I have my own wish list of  additional functionality that would be useful to have in MVPEdit Pro.  These are things I currently have to do outside of MVPEdit.

 

a. Duplicate portrait ID detection 

 

This feature would allow you to determine if multiple players have the same portrait/audio ID assigned to them.  I wrote my own utility in the Lua programming language to do this and I run it when I am working on my rosters to find duplicates.

 

b. Face / skin tone mismatch detection

 

For all players that use generic faces (face ID 901-915) this feature looks at the assigned skin tone (1-15) to make sure that it is valid.  For example, a player with a face ID of 901 should not have a skin tone of 15.  Again, I wrote my own utility in Lua to look for these mismatches.

 

c. Invalid pitch speed validation

 

When assigning pitch types to a pitcher, I have to check to make sure that the pitch speeds are valid.  One of the things that stecropper sent me was a document of MVPEdit formulas, along with this table of pitch speeds:

 

 

If this was integrated into MVPEdit Pro, a user could quickly check to to see if there are any pitchers that throw 99 mph knuckleballs or a 36 mph fastball. 

 

d. Importing player attributes from other rosters

 

Early in my Total Classics "career", stecropper gave me a special version of MVPEdit that has an "Import from MBE" function.  It allows me to specify a different MBE file and it compares the rosters in two MBE files, the one I am working on and the the other one I specify.  It then produces a list of players in common and I can then import all of the appearance attributes (e.g. portrait ID, face ID, facial hair, skin tone, walkup ditty ID, batting stance, etc.) from the MBE file I specified into the rosters I am working on.  This can save a lot of time if you are working on a roster that is only a year or two different from a current roster.

 

For example, when I created the Total Classics 1975 rosters, there were many players in common with my Total Classics 1974 mod.  Using this "Import from MBE" function saved me a lot of time since I could quickly assign appearance attributes to many TC1975 players at once.

 

[Kccitystar]

Jim,

This is exactly the kind of real-world workflow stuff I was hoping to surface with this thread. A lot of what you’re describing lines up almost perfectly with where my head is already at especially around the idea of a Roster Audit feature: less “change values” and more “show me what doesn’t make sense before it becomes a problem.”

 

For starters, Lahman integration is something on my roadmap. I want to make sure I do it right. One of those "measure twice, cut once" things because it has to be reliable and repeatable.

Things like duplicate portrait/audio IDs, face/skin tone mismatches, and invalid pitch speeds are all great examples of stuff that technically works in the editor but quietly breaks immersion or balance if you don’t catch it. Baking those checks directly into the tool instead of relying on external scripts or spreadsheets feels like a no-brainer. This is the "well yeah, that makes sense" part of what I'm looking to build.

 

Also, being able to import things from database to database is something I'm definitely looking at, because it could make TC projects or seasons of any kind a heck of a lot quicker to turn around comfortably.

 

One neat little feature I want to add in honor of the work you guys do with TC is "Eras Profiles". I spoke about it in the shoutbox but basically the basic idea would be to have optional, era-aware profiles you could apply to a roster as a baseline. Things like global contact, power, stamina, pitch movement, etc., adjusted in a way that better reflects how the game was played in a given period: Deadball era, Live ball era, pre-expansion, steroid era, modern era, and so on. One important part though: this wouldn’t be about locking anything in or “auto-fixing” rosters. Think of it more like laying down the chalk lines before you start fine-tuning. You could apply a profile, see exactly what it changes, tweak from there, or ignore it entirely.

 

From a design standpoint, I’m leaning toward keeping Eras Profiles intentionally lightweight, one solid baseline per era that reliably hits league averages for that period. TC history shows there are multiple “right” ways to balance something like pre-expansion baseball, and I don’t want to hardcode a bunch of competing recipes into the tool and pretend one is gospel.
 

The goal, for me, is consistency and transparency: a known starting point you can trust, then adjust however you see fit. If the community eventually wants to build and share their own profiles on top of that, I think that’s a great direction. I just want the defaults to stay purposefully grounded and predictable.

This is very much an idea in progress, but it feels like a natural extension of the same philosophy we’ve been talking about: making the intent clearer, reducing accidental imbalance, and letting modders spend more time on the fun parts instead of re-doing the same setup work over and over.

[alfre2jose]

3 hours ago, Kccitystar said:

 

Like how the old editor used the Lahman Database?

Yes, kinda, as far as I know that's for MLB teams and I'm talking more about something to help the construction of vertical MLB to A level rosters. Always thought that the integration of Dylan's calculators' mass ratings outputs files into MVPEdit would be a game changer.

[Kccitystar]

Some progress! So far I've got the menu strip items working and the editor can now create a valid database (with the structures), plus the keybinds are awesome.

 

Global and Advanced search is going to be sick. You guys are in for a treat.




 

[Jim825]

That looks great! 

[Muller_11]

AWESOME!!!!

[BJaysFan]

It looks like this game didn't die after all. 20 years old and it's still growing up!

 

This is some incredible stuff, a new editor and datafile.txt

 

My allegiances have always been to Operation Sports and as of late MLB 2k12, but I have always loved MVP Baseball 2005, and something fresh like this should bring me and many others back to this great game and MVP Mods.

 

Kccitystar you are genius

[Kccitystar]

 

So an update:

Doing Things the Boring (Correct) Way

I’ve been working on the less flashy but very important side of the editor: making sure roster imports are safe, predictable, and transparent. MVPEdit Pro now has a proper DAT import pipeline that takes the original MVP Baseball 2005 roster files and converts them into a modern database format without silently changing things behind the scenes. The goal here is trust first, right? If the editor fixes something, it should tell you.

So, one big example: the tool now detects and automatically corrects a known legacy issue in older rosters involving a missing attribute in lhattrib.dat, dating back to MVP 2004. 

 

Basically, there was no column for hitter tendencies when chasing late-breaking pitches (like sliders and slurves) against left-handed pitchers. The game has the pitch movement, but no hitter-side behavior to react to it, so everyone responded the same way with a 0 rating. This will be fixed when you import a roster by adding the column in and shifting every other column to the right. This will sadly break importing to MVPEdit since it will not recognize that change (the data shape is now different from what it expects), but to me that’s an acceptable tradeoff. The goal here is to move forward with a correct data model, not keep papering over legacy limitations. 

The fix will restores the missing attribute, but it won’t invent ratings...yet, but that’s intentional though. Assigning values is an editing decision, not a repair step :)

 

When you import DAT files, the editor:

• detects the legacy format,
• applies the fix safely,
• explains exactly what changed,
• and continues the import.
   

No mystery behavior, no broken rosters. I also added some quality-of-life polish:

• clear import success messages,
• readable warnings instead of cryptic errors,
• and status bar feedback so you always know what state the roster is in.
   

Next up is dirty-state tracking (showing when a roster has unsaved changes), which opens the door to real editing and eventually undo/rollback support.

 

The way I visualized it in my notes, basically the status bar (where in the image I linked says "Import completed with 1 warning(s)") will say something like "Pending Changes: (your most recent edit) + X others (if applicable)". The name of the roster on the titlebar will also have an asterisk to give you visual cues to save your roster. Classic MVPEdit did not have a way of telling you this, so a lot of the time if you fat-fingered a value or a name and then moved on to work on something else within the MBE, that was pretty much it. First draft, final draft. I'm all about modernizing the workflow with MVPEdit Pro.

I'm going to probably add a "View Edit History" feature that will show your last 10 changes in a small window. This is what I got in my designer in Visual Studio (I'm coding in C#):

Something that can inform you, like:

Time        | Player ID | Action
-----------------------------------------------
21:43:12    | 004512    | Changed Contact vs LHP
21:41:05    | 000983    | Updated Slider Control
21:39:22    | (Bulk)    | Bulk Edit: Plate Discipline

And maybe you can double click on one of these to revert the change (which would then move everything after it into a "redo" state until you make an unrelated change not in the history, which will sensibly clear the "redos" out)

I haven't started with actually making use of the data yet to show anything but that's easy stuff.  It's still the early days, but the foundation is taking a really good shape and it'll be future-proof. Still more features to go.

 

[OneSeasonWonder]

Very, excited about this. I have been using MVPedit for a little over a few weeks now and am getting used to it. I'm trying to figure out how to edit the Washington Nationals and change them back to the Montreal Expos. I also want the default stadium to be Olympic and not RFK stadium. The MOD I'm trying to make will be based on the 2001 season. I want to remove the legend teams and make them AL/NL 2001 rookies/notable players future all-stars. I also need the all-star game location switched to Seattle. Will the new editor also allow me make rotation and lineup changes a little bit easier? Or if I just want to copy and paste a lineup and then fix it later. Is there also a way to translate what some of the data actually means to in-game attributes? Like I know the fielding and throwing stats are up to 15, but in correlation to in game are they 99% ratings or a 100% ratings? I also know that based upon my tinkering around with MVP03 stats they have lower values (arm strength/flding) . MVP04-05 have some ratings that go by increments of 5 that MVP 03 does not use. A resource like this would definitely help someone that is new to modding the game.

[Kccitystar]

1 hour ago, OneSeasonWonder said:

Very, excited about this. I have been using MVPedit for a little over a few weeks now and am getting used to it. I'm trying to figure out how to edit the Washington Nationals and change them back to the Montreal Expos. I also want the default stadium to be Olympic and not RFK stadium. The MOD I'm trying to make will be based on the 2001 season. I want to remove the legend teams and make them AL/NL 2001 rookies/notable players future all-stars. I also need the all-star game location switched to Seattle. Will the new editor also allow me make rotation and lineup changes a little bit easier? Or if I just want to copy and paste a lineup and then fix it later. Is there also a way to translate what some of the data actually means to in-game attributes? Like I know the fielding and throwing stats are up to 15, but in correlation to in game are they 99% ratings or a 100% ratings? I also know that based upon my tinkering around with MVP03 stats they have lower values (arm strength/flding) . MVP04-05 have some ratings that go by increments of 5 that MVP 03 does not use. A resource like this would definitely help someone that is new to modding the game.

 

There will be an extensive guide to how the roster editor works and how ratings work in MVP when the tool is released, I can assure you

[laroquece]

[alfre2jose]

Loving the undo and review the editing historial features, much needed! Only have one question, will it have an autosave option for those who want it?

[Playball335]

This is amazing!  I haven't been this excited in quite some time. :-)

 

Being able to pull in OOTP data would also be amazing.

[Kccitystar]

1 hour ago, alfre2jose said:

Loving the undo and review the editing historial features, much needed! Only have one question, will it have an autosave option for those who want it?

 

Yep, autosave is in.

MVPEdit Pro will edit a .mvpdb project file the entire time (it's an sqlite database), so I’m planning an auto-recovery system similar to Microsoft Office where the editor periodically creates a recovery snapshot in case of a crash every 10 minutes.

It won’t automatically export or overwrite roster DAT files, so manual saves and exports are still going to be explicit actions.

Just one of those "feels right" kind of things.

[mcoll86]

sounds like its moving along. i have know idea how much is invoid doing it, am looking forward to it.

[OneSeasonWonder]

I was looking into editing .dat files from MVP03 and MVP04. Will the latest version of MVP edit support this? I kept getting an error message when I tried import the information. I also tried using big UI for the .big files and got the same type of error message. It gave me the invalid header error message. I'm also interesting if anyone knows how I could import a batting stance from one of the older games and replace Ty Cobb's stance for example.

[Kccitystar]

12 minutes ago, OneSeasonWonder said:

I was looking into editing .dat files from MVP03 and MVP04. Will the latest version of MVP edit support this? I kept getting an error message when I tried import the information. I also tried using big UI for the .big files and got the same type of error message. It gave me the invalid header error message. I'm also interesting if anyone knows how I could import a batting stance from one of the older games and replace Ty Cobb's stance for example.

 

Maybe in the future. That would require me to reverse engineer the format for MVP 2004 and 2003 which are entirely different from each other even if they look similar in structure

[OneSeasonWonder]

I have looked into editing MVP 03 and Triple Play Baseball 2002, aside from tinkering with files in notepad I can't figure out how to mod those games or import any data or assets unfortunately. What I'm trying to do remake an MVP classic 2001 total conversion MOD and was curious how close Junior was to finishing it. The last thing I read was he was 80% done.