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Originally Posted by RchW
I change LTM every season and have never had an issue. I agree that some stat outputs are more difficult to control than others but there is no reason any form of long term sim is necessary to bring league totals into line.
I've got a league played for 90 seasons and another played for 70 seasons where for the last 30+ season in each league I've used Autocalc and my own spreadsheet to determine the LTM before every season. Again I don't understand what you think is happening.
These variations in talent allow you to establish mini eras in your league history. I look at league totals each season and often decide to let certain results continue. For example I've had the steroid era 5600 HR. I've had dominant SP with many complete games and now I have a high ERA era with high strikeouts. I think you may be scaring people away from one of the best parts of the game. If you want to keep things static then allow LTM to fluctuate via autocalc and/or a spreadsheet.
I don't really understand what you mean by this but what I do know is that 4 decimal places don't matter a lot. I generally round off many LTM and don't see many issues. Not saying you're wrong but again this just doesn't happen to me. Just to clarify if I have a LTM of 1.201 calculated I enter 1.2 and it has never caused an issue.
When I have totals that bother me, generally WP, BK, PB, SF, SH. These are the hardest to control. I find that averaging LTM is the best solution. Otherwise the league totals tend to oscillate hi-lo-hi-lo.
I'm not sure what type of leagues you run but I've had significant success manipulating LTM even within a season with fine adjustments to stats like ground ball outs to get a very realistic statistical output, even in the minor leagues. Maybe we should exchange league files to see why our impressions are so different.
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i'm not going to cover all of this... we have a fundamental difference. i want an environment where player talent, and tangible things defined in the game dictate statistical output. i aim for LTMs that remain static and do not change. therefore a player with 90power in 2015 is the same as a 90power batter in 2155. what changes is the randomly created players, coaches, development process etc... if i wanted to institute some major change in how my league plays baseball, i'd change LTM manually at that point.
i don't want an arbitrary change in an LTM to dictate anything about statistical output and fluctuation - unless it is tied to a tangible change in my league, or concept in my head. if you want to manually pick when various types of eras begin or end, that's a good reason for you to fiddle with them, but the function is arbitrary in nature.
about shorter sims - the average you get from them is loaded with percent error. they are not precise. this isn't about opinion, this is about sample size and level of confidence in calculated averages.
it is necessary if you want an environment that doesn't require the use of autocalc. autocalc will cause fluctuation but for reasons other than player talent, coaching, development etc...
changing LTM has nothing to do with the talent in your league. you or autocalc is deciding that 90 power should equate to fewer or more homeruns in a particular year based on a small sample size. changing LTM is changing the scale of various player ratings (simplified). increase HR LTM means more HR per power rating (simplified).
if you don't put in the time and effort to flesh out the averages and LTMs that create an equal environment regardless of era, but you want something like that, then autocalc is for you. with a little effort you can center the natural fluctuation around a point of your choosing. if you want to say the mound has been raised again and institute a pitcher's era - cool beans. you have a cause to use it. something tangible...
about adding .001:
okay, this is all hypothetical: let's say K's for a 28t/156g league over 100 years averages to ~32,750. adding .001 to that LTM will result in 33,600 average over 100 years in second sim, or an 850 increase. if it were at 1.000 you would expect .001 of 33,000 (pretend it's the league total in settings), which is +33 SO's not +850 SO. it's so drastically different there is no explanation. you just have to roll with it. this does happen at certain points and not only with SO's. you can't recognize this happening in 1 or even 20 years of data. 50 will give a good idea, but it still is off by +/-X% that's significant enough to cause problems in guesstimating the real resulting average. other varibles influence at what LTM value this occurs. it isn't a static point.
this actual average is not something you can see in 1 year of data. in fact, you can't see anything from one year with any confidence. to show you what i mean, i attached a min/max/average/range (in that order and in order of LTMs, sorry no headers in that area) of various stats from a 100year sim with static LTMs - this was 28teams and 156games. the min/max will show that any year can be drastically different. so, even if you have a high level of talent and there is an off year due to bad luck, autocalc will inflate the related LTM causing an artificial increase in those stats not based on something tangible. when this situation arises, players will get a benefit in those years for poor reasons. sure it can happen the other way too, and my argument still stands. without somethign tangible(in the game/in a person's head) tied to the ltm change, it doesn't make much sense to do without cause.
now, if in anyone uses this, justified or not, that's fine. it won't ruin anything. regardless, it is still an arbitrary re-scaling of ratings and whatever else it influences to cause change. even the title is scary relative to a sim.. "for statistical accuracy." it will cover up leagues with fundamental flaws that result in whacky statistical output without using it. this type of thing is not natural for a simulation. it's taking the results and saying "i don't like this, so i'll arbitrarily inflate this over here and maybe change my mind a few years later." (that's the game speaking to itself)