Default Player Creation Modifiers Needs Adjusting-A Quick Analysis

[Yellowbucket58]

I mainly play with a normal MLB setup with fictional players, setup to emulate modern baseball. However, for some time now I've noticed the game produces some wonky individual stats when playing with fictional players. League wide totals are always perfect but stats distribution among players is a bit weird. The game does a great job producing stats for a setup using real players but not fictional and I believe I've figured out why.

Note: The test following ratings were recorded using 100% scouting accuracy, a 1-100 scale and ratings were not relative to a league.

I first conducted 5 separate tests using a normal MLB setup with real players emulating stats from 2016. I then recorded the ratings for the batters with at least 250 PAs and pitchers with at least 50 IPs and then averaged them out.

For batters the average ratings were:


For pitchers the average ratings were:


I then conducted 5 separate tests using an MLB setup with fictional players and simmed into the future for 20 years for each separate save. 2016 season stats were used for all saves. I then recorded the ratings for the batters with at least 250 PAs and pitchers with at least 50 IPs for the most recent season and then averaged them out.

For fictional batters the average ratings were:


For fictional pitchers the average ratings were:


As can be seen, the default player creation modifiers create fictional players and thus an environment completely different to that one found in the beginning of a save for a MLB set up using real players. For example Avoid K's in fictional leagues always balloon up while contact decreases. Other stats such as speed and stealing bases also differ greatly from those found in a setup with real players. I have also adjusted the PCMs in fictional leagues to match the ratings of a real MLB setup but the rating distribution isn't great so that isn't really a fix from my experience.

[willboat75]

replying to this to say I think this is important and a fix could go really far to help immersion

[LansdowneSt]

I'm sure you thought of it, but can you confirm that all the League Evolution toggles were off in Game Settings? The one where expansion, more/less offense, pitching etc. are located. Those ones, just to ensure that variable is eliminated from the analysis. Thanks for running this.

[Lukas Berger]

This is something we're definitely aware of and always on our radar to improve, but given everything involved and the complexity of this, it's not a simple thing at all, and without a lot of care, it's possible for things to get worse here by our trying to make it better.

[Yellowbucket58]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

I'm sure you thought of it, but can you confirm that all the League Evolution toggles were off in Game Settings? The one where expansion, more/less offense, pitching etc. are located. Those ones, just to ensure that variable is eliminated from the analysis. Thanks for running this.

Sorry for the late reply and yeah I made sure league evolution was off for all tests done. Also nice to know it's something that team is at least aware of.

[turtle4499]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

This is something we're definitely aware of and always on our radar to improve, but given everything involved and the complexity of this, it's not a simple thing at all, and without a lot of care, it's possible for things to get worse here by our trying to make it better.

So I believe I was able to isolate the behavior that is causing the problem. I made a league with only international discoveries as its player source. The game would generate players with stuff potentials that would be evened out against the hitter potentials/ real stats / league modifiers. But it doesn't appear to be accounting for stuff increasing with velo when it does so. So it ends up in a satanic feedback loop with the hitter and the pitchers just getting better until the math breaks. After about 40 seasons of that every single MLB starter had north of 400 stuff. At Least 200 pitchers in a 30 team league had a stuff of 540 with velos as low as 92 mph.

I am running another sim that is less tightly bound to verify the effect. I will drop a message in the thread when that is done. If that is the root cause though hopefully it isn't too bad to fix.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by turtle4499

So I believe I was able to isolate the behavior that is causing the problem. I made a league with only international discoveries as its player source. The game would generate players with stuff potentials that would be evened out against the hitter potentials/ real stats / league modifiers. But it doesn't appear to be accounting for stuff increasing with velo when it does so. So it ends up in a satanic feedback loop with the hitter and the pitchers just getting better until the math breaks. After about 40 seasons of that every single MLB starter had north of 400 stuff. At Least 200 pitchers in a 30 team league had a stuff of 540 with velos as low as 92 mph.

I am running another sim that is less tightly bound to verify the effect. I will drop a message in the thread when that is done. If that is the root cause though hopefully it isn't too bad to fix.

It might be helpful to get us a copy of those league files, especially from before the increase started happening so we can run through them in debug mode and figure out what might be going on.

[darkcloud4579]

Originally Posted by turtle4499

So I believe I was able to isolate the behavior that is causing the problem. I made a league with only international discoveries as its player source. The game would generate players with stuff potentials that would be evened out against the hitter potentials/ real stats / league modifiers. But it doesn't appear to be accounting for stuff increasing with velo when it does so. So it ends up in a satanic feedback loop with the hitter and the pitchers just getting better until the math breaks. After about 40 seasons of that every single MLB starter had north of 400 stuff. At Least 200 pitchers in a 30 team league had a stuff of 540 with velos as low as 92 mph.

I am running another sim that is less tightly bound to verify the effect. I will drop a message in the thread when that is done. If that is the root cause though hopefully it isn't too bad to fix.

This only happens if you overclock the player creation modifiers. I know because I did this in OOTP22 by accident and got a whole generation of super elite players that made ratings virtually useless. Basically if you go 2.000 on your creation modifiers, it'l do this. I was mostly okay with it, because I just viewed it as a phase of history, but...it's not in anyway stock game behavior in a long-term sim no matter what.

(My league is 150+ years old, I've routinely played 200-300 year OOTP sims across OOTP versions for years always with fictional players. )