The most frustrating thing

[Spracks]

I know this has been talked about a lot before, and I have experienced it in my own games, but it happened yesterday on a scale that I haven't seen before. All my prospects tanked. Every last one of them got worse, on the same day.

First, before people ask:
-Scouting budget is best in the league
-Scout has all Excellent/Legendary ratings
-Talent change randomness set to default
-I didn't run any functions or operations from the league setup menu
-This affected players of all types, from guys who were in my system when the game started to guys who were recent draft picks to guys in AAA and guys in rookie ball, very few were spared.

I get it, prospects tank all the time, only a select few have what it takes to make it to the big leagues. But to have nearly all of them go down to 1 star overnight is just not realistic. How often does a guy go from a #10 on the BA top prospects list to completely off the map, in one day? A gradual decline would work, but you don't go from hero to zero instantly. This is incredibly frustrating, as this huge change occured right before spring training, and I was counting on plugging several of these highly rated prospects into my lineup for the upcoming season, since they were already at 2-3 star Overall, and 5 stars for Potential. Now all of a sudden they are terrible and not even close to Major League level. I would understand if a prospect struggles to produce in the Majors, but the way this happened is ridiculous and ruined the game for me, which means a lot of hours are down the drain. I've been a fan of OOTP for many years, and the handling of scouting/player development has always slightly annoyed me, but this makes me want to abandon the game completely, as the entire landscape of my team has changed.

Are there any possible explanations? Does this frustrate and annoy anyone else as much as it does me? Will the scouting/player development engine ever get this right?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Spracks

I know this has been talked about a lot before, and I have experienced it in my own games, but it happened yesterday on a scale that I haven't seen before. All my prospects tanked. Every last one of them got worse, on the same day.

Just to confirm: Are you saying their overall went from 3-star to 1-star? I have not seen this. I have definitely seen potential drop from 5-star to 1-star, but always the overall was only 1-star or less for the major leagues.

Originally Posted by Spracks

How often does a guy go from a #10 on the BA top prospects list to completely off the map, in one day?

I have seen my own scout's rating tank, but I have never seen the AI evaluation change this much. What are your AI eval settings?

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by Spracks

I know this has been talked about a lot before, and I have experienced it in my own games, but it happened yesterday on a scale that I haven't seen before. All my prospects tanked. Every last one of them got worse, on the same day.

First, before people ask:
-Scouting budget is best in the league
-Scout has all Excellent/Legendary ratings
-Talent change randomness set to default
-I didn't run any functions or operations from the league setup menu
-This affected players of all types, from guys who were in my system when the game started to guys who were recent draft picks to guys in AAA and guys in rookie ball, very few were spared.

I get it, prospects tank all the time, only a select few have what it takes to make it to the big leagues. But to have nearly all of them go down to 1 star overnight is just not realistic. How often does a guy go from a #10 on the BA top prospects list to completely off the map, in one day? A gradual decline would work, but you don't go from hero to zero instantly. This is incredibly frustrating, as this huge change occured right before spring training, and I was counting on plugging several of these highly rated prospects into my lineup for the upcoming season, since they were already at 2-3 star Overall, and 5 stars for Potential. Now all of a sudden they are terrible and not even close to Major League level. I would understand if a prospect struggles to produce in the Majors, but the way this happened is ridiculous and ruined the game for me, which means a lot of hours are down the drain. I've been a fan of OOTP for many years, and the handling of scouting/player development has always slightly annoyed me, but this makes me want to abandon the game completely, as the entire landscape of my team has changed.

Are there any possible explanations? Does this frustrate and annoy anyone else as much as it does me? Will the scouting/player development engine ever get this right?

I suspect that several of these players were having gradual ability/potential declines prior to the pre-ST "tanking", it's just that your scout didn't pick up on them at first. What is your scouting accuracy rating?

The reason I ask is because I do scouting a bit differently from most - I scout (ONLY scouting, mind you) from the editor. I generally check key players every month, with most prospects every 2 months, so I'm catching shifts prior to my next scouting report. The scouting report often lags the actual change in talent by 1-2 reports, which is what you'd expect if a player really did have a talent change, but the scout can't initially tell the difference between an underlying talent change and a slump. Sometimes, the change in ability/potential completely contradicted the player's minor league statistics, as well.

The other thing with scouting accuracy is that your scout might be wrong, and your prospects haven't all tanked. A scout can be wrong both over and under the actual talent level. I would initiate follow-up scouting reports on all players concerned, just in case it was a fluke report from your scout.

You have probably also had some players (maybe not the players you want) get increases in ability over the same offseason period. Whether or not your scout would pick up on those is another matter entirely.

Sometimes teams just have an entire crop of prospects tank (hello, 2010-present Red Sox), and sometimes teams get surprise contributions from underappreciated minor leaguers. If you try out those prospects you were planning to use in ST and get the performances that you might have been expecting out of them, then I wouldn't get too caught up in their ratings.

If they did all tank, then I'm not convinced there is a problem with the player development model. I think you just got unlucky, as so many franchises do in real life.

[D-BacksJosh]

Originally Posted by Spracks

-Talent change randomness set to default

I always have this set to 50. Not sure if that has anything to do with it though. Players from the first year draft First Round reach the majors around 65% percent of the time, every round after the success rate drops exponentially, I think 4th round is somewhere at 20%. I am not trying to excuse what you are seeing, but it could just be bad luck as was previously mentioned. I have not seen that type of failure in any of my draft pick years, although I have seen failure on a consistent basis which is true to life.

[Spracks]

Just to confirm: Are you saying their overall went from 3-star to 1-star?

Yup. I had four guys, two SP, an OF, and a C, who were between 2.5-4 stars OVERALL, and 5-stars Potential and then one day later were 1 star/1 star. The Catcher was a 4 STAR OVERALL PLAYER at the end of the year, who hit 35 HR between AA and AAA, he was supposed to be a franchise player, and now he is barely good enough to play AA.

This is not how it is supposed to work. You don't wake up one morning and realize that the stud you had in AAA who you thought was going to be a superstar actually should be a backup on your AA level squad. Players don't get evaluated that poorly, and they don't drop off that fast. This is different than a highly rated prospect GRADUALLY losing potential, or a guy who kills AAA but can't put it together in the majors. Those are realistic scenarios, and that is how the game should model it. How am I supposed to think like a GM when I can't rely on the scouting information that is being given to me?

[jaysdailydose]

Originally Posted by Spracks

Yup. I had four guys, two SP, an OF, and a C, who were between 2.5-4 stars OVERALL, and 5-stars Potential and then one day later were 1 star/1 star. The Catcher was a 4 STAR OVERALL PLAYER at the end of the year, who hit 35 HR between AA and AAA, he was supposed to be a franchise player, and now he is barely good enough to play AA.

This is not how it is supposed to work. You don't wake up one morning and realize that the stud you had in AAA who you thought was going to be a superstar actually should be a backup on your AA level squad. Players don't get evaluated that poorly, and they don't drop off that fast. This is different than a highly rated prospect GRADUALLY losing potential, or a guy who kills AAA but can't put it together in the majors. Those are realistic scenarios, and that is how the game should model it. How am I supposed to think like a GM when I can't rely on the scouting information that is being given to me?

Are you using "Overall rating based on AI evaluation, not pure ratings" under global settings?

If so, what are your AI options for "AI Player Evaluation Options" -- it sounds to me like you have a heavy statistical weight assigned... could say more if I know the settings here. Thanks.

Also, can you let me know what all five ratings for your scout are, and what your scouting is set to? It would be a help. I remember seeing he was legendary in something, I'll have to rehash the thread and see what I can piece together, I know you posted some of it.

[Spracks]

Pretty sure I am using the AI evaluation option, but it is not heavily weighted on statistics, I think I kept it at default, which only has a small percentage of statistical weight. My scout has "excellent" ratings on everything, although he does "heavily favor ability."