Quote:
Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees
I greatly respect the opinions of The Wolf and others who recommend a stats-only style of play. However, I find myself agreeing with OFG when he says:
I'm wondering about these two quotes . . .
and whether more people who have stayed with ratings find better AI results by giving ratings a much higher weight in AI Player Evaluation.
For example, I have always played, up until now, with the default AI Player Evaluation weights. In eight years, I have assembled a powerhouse franchise that won 120 games last year and is on pace to win even more this season.
Take a look at the player below. After reading in this thread about finding five-star potential minor-league players being neglected by the AI in the free agent pool, I went to look and sure enough there were several guys like him hanging around.
This player was released in June after a poor performance in SSA last year and not playing at all this season. With these potentials (my scout is highly talented, so they are probably accurate), why has nobody else signed him?
I agree with OP; this is one of the reasons why I can be so successful after only a few seasons. Seasons gone by, I would have snapped up this player but now I'm going to leave him and the others alone. I want to see what happens if I make a change.
What I am going to change is the AI Player Evaluation to give much higher weight to ratings. If the AI uses only 30% of its "brain" to the ratings that I am seeing, leaving 70% (really just 15% in this case) to focus on only one partial year of year-old stats, no wonder I have an advantage. The AI and I have to be on a level playing field if we are both going to be looking at ratings in our player evaluations.
We've heard convincing arguments for no-ratings gameplay. Anybody care to speak up for AI "ratings evaluation enhancement" style of play?
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I have used the same settings you have and I have seen some players with real high potential sitting in the free agent list as well. I have sort of chalked it up to my scout being one of the best and his opinion is different than other scouts in the league. However, I also find it hard to believe that none of the other 23 scouts see what mine does.
I don't sign free agents. I build my team strictly through the draft and I allow ghost players in the minors so I have no need to fill every slot. When need arises I may make a trade. I have trade set on hard so I can't succumb to the occassional craving to cheat the other team.
I had not thought of putting a lot more emphasis on ratings. That would make sense to me. I was thinking of making it 100% rating evaluation since when I look at ratings and stats of some players, one named Drew Butler for example, the two don't jive meaning their stats have never lived up to the ratings. So this would make it seem going strictly by ratings may elevate their evaluation, but that doesn't mean they will live up to those. This seems most realistic to me when it comes to going after players. If you're going for a free agent with no major league experience, in real life scouts base their opinions more on what they see of the player than their stats from the past, even though that would play a role to a point because what someone does in high school or college is a lot different than what they may do on a professional level where they are playing against good players every day. Looking through the history of the major league draft shows what I am saying. How many early round draft picks actually had any kind of career?
The only way for stats to matter heavily would be if they had a history in the majors. Then you could combine ratings, stats and age of player to figure out where they are going a lot more accurately. Then if you use coaches, you would have to look at the quality of your coaches to see if you could get that player to have more success than in the past. These are things I look at, even more than ratings.
Another thing I look at is intelligence and work ethic. I refuse to go after anyone with super potential who has super low work ethic because I don't feel that player will ever reach his potential since he doesn't seem willing to work to get there. On the other hand, I will go after someone with so-so potential with extremely high work ethic and good intelligence because I have had success with those type of players. Combined with my coaches those players seem to overachieve a lot more often than fail.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. I guess using just stats would results in the same ends.