Manipulating playing enviornment

[Hrycaj]

This is not something I have done much before so I believe I am doing something wrong and could use some assistance.

I wanted to lock in a certain statistical environment. I'm not looking to have it at a certain year per say but it would be closest to 80's baseball. I want averages to be slightly up and power to stay in the 40's to 50's range per year for the sluggers and I want the pitchers to go longer in games. I understand league totals enough to get what I am after. Once I do I lock them in. Now the problem over a long period of time is that the game for some reason changed the General Strategic Tendencies. What this does is screw up some of the pitching things I had set. It starts pulling pitchers to early and begins to trend towards modern baseball strategic wise for arms. Aside from going in every season to set these (which I don't want to do) How do I lock in those settings so they do not move? Thank for any feedback.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

This is not something I have done much before so I believe I am doing something wrong and could use some assistance.

I wanted to lock in a certain statistical environment. I'm not looking to have it at a certain year per say but it would be closest to 80's baseball. I want averages to be slightly up and power to stay in the 40's to 50's range per year for the sluggers and I want the pitchers to go longer in games. I understand league totals enough to get what I am after. Once I do I lock them in. Now the problem over a long period of time is that the game for some reason changed the General Strategic Tendencies. What this does is screw up some of the pitching things I had set. It starts pulling pitchers to early and begins to trend towards modern baseball strategic wise for arms. Aside from going in every season to set these (which I don't want to do) How do I lock in those settings so they do not move? Thank for any feedback.

Left side of the modifiers/league totals screen. Upper left side. You will see a year displayed. That year is going to change every year you play. If you start in say 1982, you will probably be fine until it gets to 1993 and beyond. Then you start seeing the stuff you're complaining about. Instead of letting that year progress just change it back to 1982 each year when you reach preseason. You will also want to make sure you have the box for importing strategy according history unchecked as well. I am talking about the first year display you come to on the upper left side of screen. The second year deal isn't something you really want to change.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Left side of the modifiers/league totals screen. Upper left side. You will see a year displayed. That year is going to change every year you play. If you start in say 1982, you will probably be fine until it gets to 1993 and beyond. Then you start seeing the stuff you're complaining about. Instead of letting that year progress just change it back to 1982 each year when you reach preseason. You will also want to make sure you have the box for importing strategy according history unchecked as well. I am talking about the first year display you come to on the upper left side of screen. The second year deal isn't something you really want to change.

Thanks. I do have that box unchecked already. I was worried that was going to be the answer. It is really silly in a game of options that you don’t have the option to control that feature. I want to set and forget and rip off a hundred year sim. Oh well, at least I know the answer now. Thanks again.

[atlbrave1]

You can also just set up your league totals and modifiers and settings in 2026 and let it go. No changes are made since there aren't any future modifiers to change your settings. I've played this way for years (similar to what you are trying) and just stopped worrying about starting in a different year since I was simming ahead anyways.

My only other piece of advice would be to run a sample sim (or sims) as there will be some changes to the statistics over time - I have found that the totals stabilize around 5-10 years into a sim, but typically find the outlier seasons to come from players created at league inception. You may find that if you sim a year and like the stats, that they aren't quite the same 5 years down the road. You can always delete league history once the stats have stabilized and roll from there.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by atlbrave1

You can also just set up your league totals and modifiers and settings in 2026 and let it go. No changes are made since there aren't any future modifiers to change your settings. I've played this way for years (similar to what you are trying) and just stopped worrying about starting in a different year since I was simming ahead anyways.

My only other piece of advice would be to run a sample sim (or sims) as there will be some changes to the statistics over time - I have found that the totals stabilize around 5-10 years into a sim, but typically find the outlier seasons to come from players created at league inception. You may find that if you sim a year and like the stats, that they aren't quite the same 5 years down the road. You can always delete league history once the stats have stabilized and roll from there.

Thank you. Those are all good points.

[Todd R]

I saw this before but despite seeing the screen many times didn't realize the significance. On the top section of the modifiers page there are two columns. The league totals provide the target and the modifiers adjust the output to meet the target.

The following sections have no target data. It has to exist because the game needs it to create modifiers. But we can't get to it meaning a quick and easy edit by changing the target data is not possible in the second section.

The lock league totals function does not lock the target data in the second section. As reported in the thread, this results in pitcher stamina dropping over time.

These facts result in a significant loss of functionality.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Todd R

I saw this before but despite seeing the screen many times didn't realize the significance. On the top section of the modifiers page there are two columns. The league totals provide the target and the modifiers adjust the output to meet the target.

The following sections have no target data. It has to exist because the game needs it to create modifiers. But we can't get to it meaning a quick and easy edit by changing the target data is not possible in the second section.

The lock league totals function does not lock the target data in the second section. As reported in the thread, this results in pitcher stamina dropping over time.

These facts result in a significant loss of functionality.

It's a league killer for sure. Makes fast simming pretty much impossible.

[David Watts]

Sometimes it would be nice if changes were explained. Locking random debut leagues into a single year has become a very popular way to play the game over the years. I know I started doing this for some of my random debut leagues as far back as OOTP16. It was never a problem till around OOTP24/25. That's when this behind the scenes strategy crap began taking place. What sucks the most about it is, the strategy changes, but since you aren't importing strategy settings on a yearly basis, the game doesn't change the makeup of the pitching staffs/bullpens. You end up with a 5 man bullpen(1984 DH defaults), trying to handle the workload of a modern day 7 to 8 man bullpen. The results suck.

[Reed]

Historical year modifier.
Yes it would be very nice if we could lock this year for those who play with stats from a specific year. Set it once and then don't have to remember to go in every year to reset it.
It would also make it much more convenient for testing such leagues. Instead of stopping and setting each year, set it once and let game on it's own sim 10 or a 100 years.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Reed

Historical year modifier.
Yes it would be very nice if we could lock this year for those who play with stats from a specific year. Set it once and then don't have to remember to go in every year to reset it.
It would also make it much more convenient for testing such leagues. Instead of stopping and setting each year, set it once and let game on it's own sim 10 or a 100 years.

Thank you for posting the screen shot. Really hoping this can be fixed.

[Todd R]

If a person locks the league totals it means they want the league to perform the same year after year. OOTP confirms this intention by adding "excludes modifiers" to the description. That is a confirmation because locking modifiers would lock the scoring environment not the league output. League output would vary based on player ratings.

Since the selection doesn't lock the hidden output targets in the second and third sections OOTP doesn't provide the effect users expect when they select lock league totals. Because lock league totals does not currently fill its expected function it must be fixed.

On a related matter, there is an idea mentioned in this thread that the auto update of league strategy might be involved in pitcher stamina dropping. It isn't involved. The hidden league output target determines pitcher stamina. OOTP can update the stamina strategy setting to any value and the modifier will change so pitcher stamina matches the hidden output target.

While the stamina strategy setting doesn't work in circumstances Hrycaj selected, it can work in other circumstances. An explanatory note of when it works and doesn't work is sufficient. However the lock totals problem must be fixed. An explanatory note is not possible. It doesn't work. Ever.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Todd R

If a person locks the league totals it means they want the league to perform the same year after year. OOTP confirms this intention by adding "excludes modifiers" to the description. That is a confirmation because locking modifiers would lock the scoring environment not the league output. League output would vary based on player ratings.

Since the selection doesn't lock the hidden output targets in the second and third sections OOTP doesn't provide the effect users expect when they select lock league totals. Because lock league totals does not currently fill its expected function it must be fixed.

On a related matter, there is an idea mentioned in this thread that the auto update of league strategy might be involved in pitcher stamina dropping. It isn't involved. The hidden league output target determines pitcher stamina. OOTP can update the stamina strategy setting to any value and the modifier will change so pitcher stamina matches the hidden output target.

While the stamina strategy setting doesn't work in circumstances Hrycaj selected, it can work in other circumstances. An explanatory note of when it works and doesn't work is sufficient. However the lock totals problem must be fixed. An explanatory note is not possible. It doesn't work. Ever.

I would guess stamina remains the same. I think the problem is that the strategy settings are being changed even though they don't show that they are being changed. Relief pitcher usage is going from often to very often to extreme even though our screen will always show it as whatever it was when the league was created and the option to not update strategy yearly was chosen. As the strategy settings change, AI managers start reacting accordingly by yanking starters and using relief pitcher accordingly. Would be interesting if a human manager would test this by operating their team like it was still the year the league is supposed to be based on. If it's "always 1984" could the human manager tally 24 complete games(league average for 1984), while the best an AI manager could do is 1?

I should say that I don't think the stamina modifier is being changed. I do think the setting that's under strategy is changing. So it starts at normal(1984) and works itself to low(1993) and so forth.

[GoLeafsGo]

I don't understand why there isn't an option to lock the historical year. The workaround I used was changing the text files in the database folder. I just put every stat year after my start year with the stats from the year I wanted to copy if that makes sense. As was already said you could just start in 2026 and change that year stats only.

The big file that mattered the most was the era_stats.txt file. That seems to control the CG% and other pitcher outs/27 and IP settings. Maybe none of it mattered but it got me the stats I wanted. Try changing the CG% to 1.0 and see if they play every inning. Just make sure you backup all the files you change first.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by GoLeafsGo

I don't understand why there isn't an option to lock the historical year. The workaround I used was changing the text files in the database folder. I just put every stat year after my start year with the stats from the year I wanted to copy if that makes sense. As was already said you could just start in 2026 and change that year stats only.

The big file that mattered the most was the era_stats.txt file. That seems to control the CG% and other pitcher outs/27 and IP settings. Maybe none of it mattered but it got me the stats I wanted. Try changing the CG% to 1.0 and see if they play every inning. Just make sure you backup all the files you change first.

This is a good idea for a work around. It seems there is some traction for a lock setting when it comes to league strategy. Hopefully this thread grabs the notice of the devs and something can be done in terms of a patch or for a future version of the game. I think the consensus here is if you manually control things on a year to year basis you can do it, but there are several like myself that would like the option to set it and forget it for longer sims.

[Todd R]

Originally Posted by GoLeafsGo

I don't understand why there isn't an option to lock the historical year.

They tried. That's what Lock League Totals would do if it worked.

I previously observed that the hidden data for the second and third section isn't really league totals but it performs the same function in the calculations as League Totals do in the top section. It should have been locked as part of the function.

[Todd R]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

This is a good idea for a work around. It seems there is some traction for a lock setting when it comes to league strategy.

The league strategy changing is not what is causing your problem. The change in the target data that is hidden is what is causing your problem.

If you want to run two test seasons you can confirm this. Set up two replay leagues where the league strategy for stamina would be in mid range. Move the stamina setting for one to max and the other to min. Sim the season. You'll get the same results in each save.

If you don't want to run the whole season then change the strategy settings and push the Auto-Calc button. You'll see the modifier change. It changes to over ride the strategy setting and make output match the hidden output target.