Quote:
Originally Posted by Rondell Tate
Where's the fun in playing a rigged game?
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This topic has come up numerous times in the past, with several people saying it must be rigged and others saying it's not. I personally don't see any evidence of it being rigged and I've played in many post-seasons with various teams of varying quality since OOTP v4.
For example, in my current universe, I'm managing a fictional Milwaukee Brewers with both real and fictional players mixed in. When I first started with this team, they were the worst in baseball and in my 4th season I finally went to the World Series (no playoffs at that time). Right before the series, I had several key injuries which decimated my already weak offense and I found myself using a couple of OF subs that could hardly hit at all (.230 and .176 averages during regular season).
To make a long story short, the two subs were the top hitters and a mediocre starting pitcher won 2 of the 4 games and we won 4 games to 2. I thought there was no way we could beat the other team which was far better even before all the injuries to my players. It was also the most exciting WS that one of my teams had played in since I started playing OOTP.
The next 2 seasons I made it to the playoffs (just added them) and lost both times after leading Pittsburgh 3 games to 1. It was heartbreaking and at times it felt like the AI was getting too lucky. I momentarily had feelings like you mentioned and had to remind myself of past experiences with prior versions that went differently.
The next two WS my team played in, my team was about the equal of the other team and we won 1 series and lost the other. In my most recent WS, my team was far superior to anyone (.747 WPct, 16 game winning streak followed by 1 loss, then 15 game winning streak - best team I ever seen or had in my years with OOTP) and I remember feeling a sense of doom before the start of the series. We won the first game then lost two straight games that we should have won and I felt again like the AI was cheating (I should have known better). It had two of the most amazing comebacks I had ever seen - no lead was safe and my pitching staff which was the best in baseball, totally forgot how to pitch. It didn't matter who I put out there, they got clobbered and even though we kept scoring too, they always countered and ended up taking a 2-1 series lead.
To make yet another long story short, we started playing like we did all season and fairly easily won the last 3 games to win the WS. So overall now, my team is 3-1 in the 4 WS I've played in. In the playoffs, I have 4 wins and 4 losses.
In an OOTP 5/6 league, I had similar experiences where my teams sometimes performed as expected and sometimes they overachieved/underachieved. When the underachieving happens several times in a row, it can feel like some cheating is going on, but I really doubt it since it's gone the other way for me (and others) so many times as well.