Historical Players Locked Out of Learning Positions in Development-Only Games

Charlie Hough · 11-30-2023, 05:24 PM

As a past recalc-only player, I was not aware of this until recently, but it is causing issues in my development-only games. It's also an issue that we've discussed recently in the historical and fictional games forum.

When historical players are created in a league, even with recalc turned off and development turned on, they are locked out of learning new positions unless they played at one of those positions within the range of years specified in the initial fielding ratings calculation range.

For example, if you create players and use a three-year period for calculating their initial fielding ratings, they only have the potential to learn positions that they played during that three-year range. OOTP locks them out of ever learning any positions that they didn't play during that time. Even if they played 1,000 games at a position in the future, if they didn't play any games at that position during the three-year period, they are locked out of learning it. They can gain experience at the position, but they never gain a positional rating, so they commit a high number of errors and are a defensive liability.

For historical players, especially in development-only games, the limitations on learning new positions should not exist, unless the user wants to optionally impose them. The only alternative right now is to base fielding ratings on a player's entire career, but then that potentially skews the player's ratings for the OOTP sim. He may have much higher or lower fielding ratings than he should, right from the start of the sim.

By the way, strangely, OOTP does not always include all of the positions for which players have real life stats in the initial fielding ratings calculation range. I’m not sure if there is a minimum GP or IP threshold, but I have seen players receive no rating and get locked out of learning a position, even though they played a number of games at that position within the specified real-life stats range. That appears to be a bug, and I can provide league files if you need to see some examples, but this is separate from the main issue here.

Ultimately, I would like to see two improvement here:

1. If a player ever played a position during his real-life historical career, then he should definitely have the potential to learn that position and gain experience and positional rating at that position in OOTP, especially in a development-only game. We should at least have the option to enable that. It should not be impossible.

2. Beyond this, especially for development-only leagues, it should be possible for any historical player to learn new positions, even if he didn’t play them in real life, as long as the player meets OOTP’s requirements for learning new positions (e.g. throwing right-handed to learn some of the infield positions). If we’re choosing to use development and not recalc, then why is development locked out and disabled for certain positions? It doesn’t make any sense to me. But, if people want those limits, they should still have the option to impose them.

11-30-2023, 05:24 PM	#1
Charlie Hough Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 3,644	Historical Players Locked Out of Learning Positions in Development-Only Games As a past recalc-only player, I was not aware of this until recently, but it is causing issues in my development-only games. It's also an issue that we've discussed recently in the historical and fictional games forum. When historical players are created in a league, even with recalc turned off and development turned on, they are locked out of learning new positions unless they played at one of those positions within the range of years specified in the initial fielding ratings calculation range. For example, if you create players and use a three-year period for calculating their initial fielding ratings, they only have the potential to learn positions that they played during that three-year range. OOTP locks them out of ever learning any positions that they didn't play during that time. Even if they played 1,000 games at a position in the future, if they didn't play any games at that position during the three-year period, they are locked out of learning it. They can gain experience at the position, but they never gain a positional rating, so they commit a high number of errors and are a defensive liability. For historical players, especially in development-only games, the limitations on learning new positions should not exist, unless the user wants to optionally impose them. The only alternative right now is to base fielding ratings on a player's entire career, but then that potentially skews the player's ratings for the OOTP sim. He may have much higher or lower fielding ratings than he should, right from the start of the sim. By the way, strangely, OOTP does not always include all of the positions for which players have real life stats in the initial fielding ratings calculation range. I’m not sure if there is a minimum GP or IP threshold, but I have seen players receive no rating and get locked out of learning a position, even though they played a number of games at that position within the specified real-life stats range. That appears to be a bug, and I can provide league files if you need to see some examples, but this is separate from the main issue here. Ultimately, I would like to see two improvement here: 1. If a player ever played a position during his real-life historical career, then he should definitely have the potential to learn that position and gain experience and positional rating at that position in OOTP, especially in a development-only game. We should at least have the option to enable that. It should not be impossible. 2. Beyond this, especially for development-only leagues, it should be possible for any historical player to learn new positions, even if he didn’t play them in real life, as long as the player meets OOTP’s requirements for learning new positions (e.g. throwing right-handed to learn some of the infield positions). If we’re choosing to use development and not recalc, then why is development locked out and disabled for certain positions? It doesn’t make any sense to me. But, if people want those limits, they should still have the option to impose them.