Noticed something weird when I turned on "Ghost" players

smythejd · 08-16-2011, 11:36 PM

I have just started my second league in OOTP. This one has three minor league teams per franchise (the first league only had one minor league team). I have just completed my second season and after reviewing everything I noticed that my triple A team (which was understaffed all year) had an ERA of over 10. Not really what I wanted to see.

I went to the "Minor league System Report" screen of minor league rosters (to see if i should move some players) After a lot of player movement I only had two suggestions. Both "possible ready for major leaguer level". I promoted and rearranged all the other players (yes, I filled my AAA level team - wont make that mistake again). I went to check to see if I checked "ghost" and noticed that it was unchecked. Do not want an ERA of over 10 ever again so changed it and went back to my Minor league system report and noticed that I have a TON of suggestions now. Does anyone know WHY?

Bluenoser · 08-17-2011, 07:28 AM

Well, when you didn't have ghost players on, then enough players had to be kept at each level to fill out line-ups/depth charts. It didn't suggest anyone to be moved up because then you would have been short players at some levels.

Once you activated ghost players, there was no need to keep enough players at each level.

OutS|der · 08-17-2011, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Well, when you didn't have ghost players on, then enough players had to be kept at each level to fill out line-ups/depth charts. It didn't suggest anyone to be moved up because then you would have been short players at some levels.

Once you activated ghost players, there was no need to keep enough players at each level.

Is this truly how it works? because then if so by this reasoning it is better to fill out my minors with fictional players otherwise the AI might move up or down players who shouldn't just to fill rosters.

I thought ghost players was just so you don't have to have full rosters and would have nothing to do with the suggestion to move up or not

Bluenoser · 08-17-2011, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Is this truly how it works? because then if so by this reasoning it is better to fill out my minors with fictional players otherwise the AI might move up or down players who shouldn't just to fill rosters.

You can lock players at any level you wish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OutS|der

I thought ghost players was just so you don't have to have full rosters and would have nothing to do with the suggestion to move up or not

Ghost players are for that, so you don't have to have full rosters. I was speculating because I can't think of any other good reason why the AI did what it did.

I don't believe it's a bug since this is the first time I've heard of happening. If it was happening to others too I would have thought it would be mentioned by now.

Again, just speculation on my part.

OutS|der · 08-17-2011, 09:50 AM

i can't lock players i'm on 11, i refuse to play 12 till the wrong country bug is fixed so am stuck on 11 for now.

i would hope the suggestions to move a player up or down has no bearing on if the roster is full for that or the next level or not.

I've always used ghost players but never noticed if the suggestions changed due to roster levels.

I just have a fear of wasting a players talent if i mess up thier minor league time so i try to follow what the suggestions say.

Bluenoser · 08-17-2011, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OutS|der

i can't lock players i'm on 11, i refuse to play 12 till the wrong country bug is fixed so am stuck on 11 for now.

i would hope the suggestions to move a player up or down has no bearing on if the roster is full for that or the next level or not.

I've always used ghost players but never noticed if the suggestions changed due to roster levels.

I just have a fear of wasting a players talent if i mess up thier minor league time so i try to follow what the suggestions say.

Everyone has their own way of managing the minors. As for moving guys up and down, personally I barely pay attention to the AI suggestion, I just find it's wrong far more often than right. I use stats/ratings with an emphasis on stats when making promotion/demotion decisions, pretty much like real life.

The ghost players thing has me curious so I'm going to experiment with it a bit tonight when I get home from work. If I find anything odd I'll post back here.

RchW · 08-17-2011, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Everyone has their own way of managing the minors. As for moving guys up and down, personally I barely pay attention to the AI suggestion, I just find it's wrong far more often than right. I use stats/ratings with an emphasis on stats when making promotion/demotion decisions, pretty much like real life.

The ghost players thing has me curious so I'm going to experiment with it a bit tonight when I get home from work. If I find anything odd I'll post back here.

Interesting how different perspectives work. I let the AI run my minors for the most part. Recently I have used the "lock" feature occasionaly, to hold back mostly mediocre prospects who often get promoted due to higher ratings.

I do this to add another level of difficulty for me as a solo player. I probably should go to stats only but I like looking at stats and ratings. Since I usually have the lowest draft pick every year, using the AI just holds me back enough to keep it interesting. I'm also quite impressed at the job the AI does with my group of middling prospects FWIW.

OutS|der · 08-17-2011, 01:04 PM

i usally try and let the ai handle my minors as well but i've ran some teams where i stacked my team with 30-40 of the top 100 prospects and other players and watched how the ai put my team, with things like Kershaw a MLB picther possibly ready for AA so i start to wonder what it's thinking at times and now try to manage them myself. Just check on them once a month or so and they go up if the ai says thier ready and their stats back it up.
who is making the suggestion for the players anyways? my bench coach? the minor league teams? my scout? am confused on that was well

smythejd · 08-17-2011, 02:10 PM

Just getting back to this post...

You said "Well, when you didn't have ghost players on, then enough players had to be kept at each level to fill out line-ups/depth charts. It didn't suggest anyone to be moved up because then you would have been short players at some levels."

I am not sure that is correct because my A team had around 50 players on it. My AA team had around 20 players and my AAA team had 10 (with around 8 players on IR). If the AI was looking at the whole picture, it would have had me move players off the A roster to fill the other two.

This "ghost" thang really has me stumped.

Bluenoser · 08-18-2011, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smythejd

I am not sure that is correct because my A team had around 50 players on it. My AA team had around 20 players and my AAA team had 10 (with around 8 players on IR). If the AI was looking at the whole picture, it would have had me move players off the A roster to fill the other two.

This "ghost" thang really has me stumped.

Not necessarily - 10 players is enough to fill out a line-up, although you'd be screwed if you had injuries or needed to relieve the starter.

MikeS21 · 08-18-2011, 08:42 AM

Wait a minute. I thought the "ghost" players were the same thing as the "fictional" players.

This may be getting to the heart of some game crashes I have been experiencing. I play the full minors option, an occasionally add an extra developmental league as I have more minor league players than I do roster room. Rather than cutting players, I move them to another minor league team so they can get playing time (plus I don't have a rookie team that has a roster of 30 relief pitchers). I allow the AI to create fictional players and I allow ghost players - thinking they were one and the same - so I need not worry about funky rosters.

The first time I tried messing with these fictional/ghost players, my game crashed right around the trade deadline of my second season. Before that, I had simmed up through the 4th season, before I started a new game with expanded minors. I have always assumed my game crashes were due to roster problems somewhere.

Perhaps someone can explain the difference between the ghost playter and the fictional players and how to utilize each in the game. Thanks!

OutS|der · 08-18-2011, 09:04 AM

from the manual

When you select this check box, the game will fill empty roster spots with 'ghost players.' These players have no names or recorded statistics. This allows you to play a game with only a few real players on a minor league roster.

so by that i think it means that the differance is that fictional players will get stats and that ghost plays won't but in terms of ability they should be about the same.

I use ghost players rather than fictional because it's alot easier to manage 20 prospects that i want to actually make my team one day rather then having a whole team of players that i will never care about taking up space on my minor teams screen.

it does appear that i tend to lose more with just the ghost players so it leads me to think fictional players are better ability wise because of the PCM's when you create the fictional take affect where as ghost players just suck.

i'm not sure what is the better way, where my prospects get the best chance to develop and my minor league teams don't suck.

Bluenoser · 08-18-2011, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeS21

Wait a minute. I thought the "ghost" players were the same thing as the "fictional" players.

This may be getting to the heart of some game crashes I have been experiencing. I play the full minors option, an occasionally add an extra developmental league as I have more minor league players than I do roster room. Rather than cutting players, I move them to another minor league team so they can get playing time (plus I don't have a rookie team that has a roster of 30 relief pitchers). I allow the AI to create fictional players and I allow ghost players - thinking they were one and the same - so I need not worry about funky rosters.

The first time I tried messing with these fictional/ghost players, my game crashed right around the trade deadline of my second season. Before that, I had simmed up through the 4th season, before I started a new game with expanded minors. I have always assumed my game crashes were due to roster problems somewhere.

Perhaps someone can explain the difference between the ghost playter and the fictional players and how to utilize each in the game. Thanks!

The difference is, you can see one and not the other. The whole idea of ghost players, as OutSider said, is to fill empty roster spots you don't have players for. Say you only have 7 guys at AA, you can still field a team if ghost players are enabled. The ghost players fill any spots you're unable to.

They serve no other purpose and don't accumulate stats.

I doubt this was causing your crashes if you had it enabled. If you didn't have it enabled and there weren't enough players at a certain level, you would receive a message when you tried to sim telling you that. The game won't advance if line-ups aren't complete.

However not having enough players could cause roster problems and possibly cause crashes, but again, you should receive a message if you have an illegal number of players.

08-16-2011, 11:36 PM	#1
smythejd All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,011	Noticed something weird when I turned on "Ghost" players I have just started my second league in OOTP. This one has three minor league teams per franchise (the first league only had one minor league team). I have just completed my second season and after reviewing everything I noticed that my triple A team (which was understaffed all year) had an ERA of over 10. Not really what I wanted to see. I went to the "Minor league System Report" screen of minor league rosters (to see if i should move some players) After a lot of player movement I only had two suggestions. Both "possible ready for major leaguer level". I promoted and rearranged all the other players (yes, I filled my AAA level team - wont make that mistake again). I went to check to see if I checked "ghost" and noticed that it was unchecked. Do not want an ERA of over 10 ever again so changed it and went back to my Minor league system report and noticed that I have a TON of suggestions now. Does anyone know WHY?

08-17-2011, 07:28 AM	#2
Bluenoser Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: In The Moment Posts: 14,076	Well, when you didn't have ghost players on, then enough players had to be kept at each level to fill out line-ups/depth charts. It didn't suggest anyone to be moved up because then you would have been short players at some levels. Once you activated ghost players, there was no need to keep enough players at each level.

08-17-2011, 09:50 AM	#5
OutS\|der Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: In A Van Down By The River Posts: 2,596 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	i can't lock players i'm on 11, i refuse to play 12 till the wrong country bug is fixed so am stuck on 11 for now. i would hope the suggestions to move a player up or down has no bearing on if the roster is full for that or the next level or not. I've always used ghost players but never noticed if the suggestions changed due to roster levels. I just have a fear of wasting a players talent if i mess up thier minor league time so i try to follow what the suggestions say.

08-17-2011, 01:04 PM	#8
OutS\|der Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: In A Van Down By The River Posts: 2,596 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	i usally try and let the ai handle my minors as well but i've ran some teams where i stacked my team with 30-40 of the top 100 prospects and other players and watched how the ai put my team, with things like Kershaw a MLB picther possibly ready for AA so i start to wonder what it's thinking at times and now try to manage them myself. Just check on them once a month or so and they go up if the ai says thier ready and their stats back it up. who is making the suggestion for the players anyways? my bench coach? the minor league teams? my scout? am confused on that was well

08-17-2011, 02:10 PM	#9
smythejd All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,011	Just getting back to this post... You said "Well, when you didn't have ghost players on, then enough players had to be kept at each level to fill out line-ups/depth charts. It didn't suggest anyone to be moved up because then you would have been short players at some levels." I am not sure that is correct because my A team had around 50 players on it. My AA team had around 20 players and my AAA team had 10 (with around 8 players on IR). If the AI was looking at the whole picture, it would have had me move players off the A roster to fill the other two. This "ghost" thang really has me stumped.

08-18-2011, 08:42 AM	#11
MikeS21 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 275	Wait a minute. I thought the "ghost" players were the same thing as the "fictional" players. This may be getting to the heart of some game crashes I have been experiencing. I play the full minors option, an occasionally add an extra developmental league as I have more minor league players than I do roster room. Rather than cutting players, I move them to another minor league team so they can get playing time (plus I don't have a rookie team that has a roster of 30 relief pitchers). I allow the AI to create fictional players and I allow ghost players - thinking they were one and the same - so I need not worry about funky rosters. The first time I tried messing with these fictional/ghost players, my game crashed right around the trade deadline of my second season. Before that, I had simmed up through the 4th season, before I started a new game with expanded minors. I have always assumed my game crashes were due to roster problems somewhere. Perhaps someone can explain the difference between the ghost playter and the fictional players and how to utilize each in the game. Thanks!

08-18-2011, 09:04 AM	#12
OutS\|der Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: In A Van Down By The River Posts: 2,596 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	from the manual When you select this check box, the game will fill empty roster spots with 'ghost players.' These players have no names or recorded statistics. This allows you to play a game with only a few real players on a minor league roster. so by that i think it means that the differance is that fictional players will get stats and that ghost plays won't but in terms of ability they should be about the same. I use ghost players rather than fictional because it's alot easier to manage 20 prospects that i want to actually make my team one day rather then having a whole team of players that i will never care about taking up space on my minor teams screen. it does appear that i tend to lose more with just the ghost players so it leads me to think fictional players are better ability wise because of the PCM's when you create the fictional take affect where as ghost players just suck. i'm not sure what is the better way, where my prospects get the best chance to develop and my minor league teams don't suck.