[gopads02]

Originally posted by Henry
Therein lies this argument I believe. There are those who feel that if a player is batting .350 even though his "stat" is a "5". that his rating should go up since he's proving he can do better.

My argument is you can't do that within the process that Markus has created without possibly imbalancing the whole game.

We all understand that "talent" moves up and down mostly due to age, but randomly as well. The "ratings" try and follow that curve.... talent up - ratings up - talent down - ratings down.

Stats are the result of the current ratings - so, if a guy is batting .350 and his "rating" is "5" then the explanation can only be one of two possibilites...

(1) He's beating the laws of average, or
(2) There is a "hidden" value that further defines a players abilities.

If the 2nd is true, then it was added to help throw in the uncertainties we see in real life. "Why can't Joe Blow hit better? He's got amazing talent" or "Where did Dave Smith come from? He doesn't appear that good."

Also if #2 is true, this gives you "reason" to put Smith in instead of Joe Blow regardless of ratings.

If #1 is true, then yes, it makes sense to always go with the best rated guy.

Here's the dilemma... if you KNOW which of the above is in the game, you have lost the "fog of war" that makes this game different. I know some of you are going to take issue with this - but every other baseball game on the market gives you everything you need to know to make the obvious choice. OOTP doesn't - and that's what makes it different.

another 2 cents....

Ok, Henry I hope you're not taking any of what I've been saying or about to say personally I'm just giving an opposing point of view (and in my opinion a superior one ).

Ok like u said assuming #2 that there are hidden values that are added "to help throw in the uncertainties we see in real life." Alright, this sounds all good and dandy, and I agree with you I like this "Fog of War" aspect a lot about OOTP5. But you're not finishing that analogy all the way. In real life there is a "Fog of War" but once your army arrives at the location, you realize the truth and see whether you're wrong or right, and consequently, your views are re-adjusted to more represent the truth of what you see before your eyes. You take this new adjustment into account before you make your next move just like how ratings should be re-adjusted once you've reached the location(IE Put the Player in Your Starting MLB Lineup & witnessing his performance).

To add to that point, what bugs me is that in real life after a period of time "Dave Smith/Jaime Moyer" is recognized as a legit major leaguer and even as an All-star. Doesn't this mean now that according to the Managers who start him and the fans who vote for him are recognizing that Moyer's ratings are actually higher. In real life, we are allowed the flexibility to adjust those ratings and change our minds about a player...in OOTP5 the ratings don't adjust, and I think if a guy consistently "overachieves" for a sustainable period then the ratings should eventually reflect his true talents. Maybe Marcus should make it so, if we start players who have these "hidden talents" for more than 2-3 years then their "fog of war" should be removed and their true talents be revealed...i mean after 2 or 3 years of all-star numbers the secret is out there's no more need for a "fog of war." I like the "fog of war" early on but at some point initial perceptions should be adjusted as they are in real life.

More importantly, this is even more of an issue when it comes to propects who consistently overachieve in their minor league years but are not given a chance because their perceived talent is "low". Because their shown talent is low we know they can't develop and thus they're ratings won't go up anymore unless their talent does go up as well- and as a result, we never ever even give them a chance to see if they can make it in the big leagues (we usually wait until these types randomly get a talent increase before we promote them). Their shown talent then should either reflect their hidden real talent (if you believe #2) or it should increase (if you believe #1), otherwise these players who are generated for us are useless- and this is wrong. The game would be so much better if "sleeper" prospects and "diamond in the rough" type players could be developed as they do in real life. Naturally bumping up these players talent levels through talent level increases brings up your next issue which is:

Originally posted by Henry

have a concern on game balance if you take the stats (which might be controlled by the hidden factor) and then re-layer them into a set of equations that are designed to create them. In effect, your creating a "loop". In other words, player A hits .350 with a "5" rating. The "loop" ups him to "6" and he now hits .370... the loop ups him to "7" and he hits .400. you can see where I'm going....

To which I reply, there is a way around this problem by implementing a "performance vs. expectation" control that I explained a couple of posts earlier and will repaste here for those too lazy to look back up.

Originally posted by GoPads02
Of course, the biggest worry of having stats dictate to a degree whether Talent Potential increases is that you'll have a spiralling situation where players with good stats will get all the talent increases and those with bad stats will suffer a downward spiral of talent decreases. Again, this is not true, because there are at least 2 controls besides age. The first control is that again the percentages are still very low. The 2nd control is that players must Overachieve or Underachieve relative to their Talent Levels in order to have a higher probability of a talent increase/decrease, otherwise they're percent chance remains at 5%.

To illustrate what I mean, let's assume that there are two players, "Player A" and "Player B." Both players are exactly the same (same age, position) except that both their Talent and Ratings differ. So "Player A" who has a Homerun Talent of Fair and hits 15 HRs each year in AA and AAA will get that +2% added to his base 5% for a Talent Increase. "Player B," who has a Homerun Talent of Average, hits 15 HRs in AA and AAA, however he will get nothing or +0% added to his base 5% probability. Even though both players have performed exactly the same statistically, Player A has a higher probability of a talent increase than Player B (7% for A vs. 5% for B) because it is perceived that Player A is overachieving relative to his Talent Level of Poor while Player B is merely performing at a level that is expected of him.

This "performance vs. expectations" mechanism acts as a control because say now Player A does get lucky and indeed receives a Talent Increase. His Homerun Talent Level increases from Fair to Average. Now since his Talent Level is higher, his expectations are higher as well, which makes it more diffucult for him to "overachieve" again. Essentially this means his probability for another Talent increase is reset from 7% back to the normal base level of 5%. It will only go up to 7% if he overachieves again and hits like 30+ HRs in AAA which is considered "Overachieving" for a prospect who has a HR Talent of Average. The same concept is applied for underachievers and talent decreases.

I hope i'm making sense and I hope you see why I think it's not that difficult and more importantly, disruptive at all to make these small tweaks to the Player Development curves. NOTE TO HENRY And by tweaking the Player Development curves first, the top 100 list will automatically adjust (and in effect change) while keeping the criteria for choosing who's on the list the same as before- that is what I hope happenned in the last patch...only Marcus and maybe Henry knows for sure.

I'm sorry to be repeating this over and over again...especially since I explained about this solution and control mechanism in my very first original post 6 months ago, but I have a feeling u didn't pick it up the first time around.

Another point to add is, logically, this is an additional layer that is added to the player development algorithm not a new algorithm that replaces the one that Marcus already has in place for player development. This means that the same rules about players having growth occurring from 20-27 applies, the same rules about players declining the beginning of age 33+ still applies, and the "exceptions" that make this game so great still apply as well This is merely a probability adjustment to the randomness factor of talent increases. Assuming this is how Marcus's player development algorythm is programmed, adding this layer with the included control shouldn't be disruptive at all to the current balance of the game.