Completely demoralised

[bosunmate]

Originally Posted by Rondell Tate

I swear there's a separate difficulty level that switches on in the World Series, to make it harder to beat the game and make the AI seem more challenging.
I just lost a series where the other team rated OK defensively (mostly 9-to 11); mine about 17/20 on average. Guess who had more errors? Guess which team never let a single grounder up the middle into the outfield in seven games (when Pete Rose is consistently making playing behind the bag from 2B, there's something screwy going on). Guess whose catcher (1/20 speed) and right fielder (3/20 speed) hit infield singles in consecutive AB in consecutive games? And whose OK right fielder made an unbelievable two-out catch in the top of the ninth, only to have my ace reliever lose on: hit batsmen, two-hopper apparently right through my 19/20 first baseman, three-run HR, Series over ...
I'm tired of having ace starters with 17/20 control or better walk the leadoff hitter inning after inning in the World Series. I mean, Bob Gibson has a WS ERA in the high single digits after four seasons in one sim I abandonded for just this reason.
I decided to try again and spent three months playing out every game of a season, and now I just feel cheated. This happens almost every time I play solo ... I win the regular season going away, then the other team plays out of its mind in the Series and I lose probably 90 percent of them. Where's the fun in playing a rigged game?

Doesn't drive you nuts i just finished my ninth season in my historical league. I have made the playoffs 6 times in nine years and i have won 4 manager of the year awards. But not once have i been able to pull it off and win. I keep waiting for the team to ax me. I don't know about the people who find it to easy, they must be cheating the computer.

[jasonn29tn14]

Originally Posted by ehencley

I believe that the "alleged" late season fall off in Human teams is due to rest issues. I truly believe that if you start a guy 155-162 games a year, they start to lose effectiveness in OOTP.

This is a fascinating theory. I am relentless about platooning and giving guys rest throughout the season. My team just ripped through the playoffs and WS with a 12-2 record. Coincidence(?)

[Malleus Dei]

And how do you guys think Bobby Cox felt back in the nineties? He kept taking the best baseball team into the playoffs year after year and only came out of them all with one World Series championship ring.

This stuff happens in the game and it happens in real life. Get over yourselves, it's not a conspiracy, it's not extra double secret handicap programming, it's just sample size and randomness having their way.

[bosunmate]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

And how do you guys think Bobby Cox felt back in the nineties? He kept taking the best baseball team into the playoffs year after year and only came out of them all with one World Series championship ring.

This stuff happens in the game and it happens in real life. Get over yourselves, it's not a conspiracy, it's not extra double secret handicap programming, it's just sample size and randomness having their way.

Secret handicap programming, thats a good one MD...

[Rondell Tate]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Get over yoursel(f)

Back atcha.
Why is it people can't express opinions you disagree with on this board without you telling us to shut up and go away?

[RchW]

Originally Posted by ehencley

I believe that the "alleged" late season fall off in Human teams is due to rest issues. I truly believe that if you start a guy 155-162 games a year, they start to lose effectiveness in OOTP.

Originally Posted by jasonn29tn14

This is a fascinating theory. I am relentless about platooning and giving guys rest throughout the season. My team just ripped through the playoffs and WS with a 12-2 record. Coincidence(?)

This caught my eye too. I sim using the 7-day lineup and manually substitute players. Depending on injuries I can have 4-5 players play 155-160 games. It never occurred to me that there may be a drop off despite the 100% rested state. I should look at first and second half stats more closely.

I also use highest rested on the rotation to get my best starters a couple more starts. Hmmm.....

[Killing Time]

Originally Posted by Rondell Tate

Back atcha.

Why is it other people can't express opinions that you disagree with on this board, Rondell Tate, without you putting words in their mouth? All he told you to do was to chill out.

You got beat. If you play baseball you can expect to get beat a lot of the time. You don't have to be happy that you got beat, but blaming it on "a separate difficulty level that switches on in the World Series" and accusing the game of being "rigged"? Fantasyland. There's no shame in getting to the World Series and getting beat, how many teams in your league never made it that far? I'm never ashamed to finish 2nd out of 30. Why should I be? That's pretty good.

I play and I get beat and sometimes pretty badly but I accept the fact that it was a combination of luck, the team that I built myself, and my skill at managing that team on the field that caused it and I accept that and sure don't make wild accusations and point fingers elsewhere.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

I play and I get beat and sometimes pretty badly but I accept the fact that it was a combination of luck, the team that I built myself, and my skill at managing that team on the field that caused it and I accept that and sure don't make wild accusations and point fingers elsewhere.

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.....

Not that you're a loser, but if Lou Pinella played OOTP he'd be a whole lot worse than Mr. Tate on these boards.....

[Green & Gold Heart]

Originally Posted by RchW

This caught my eye too. I sim using the 7-day lineup and manually substitute players. Depending on injuries I can have 4-5 players play 155-160 games. It never occurred to me that there may be a drop off despite the 100% rested state. I should look at first and second half stats more closely.

I also use highest rested on the rotation to get my best starters a couple more starts. Hmmm.....

Actually some of my best successes in solo league play came from using a six-man rotation on strict order. I got tired of my ace starter(s) getting shelled in the playoffs.

[Carplos]

Originally Posted by Rondell Tate

Back atcha.
Why is it people can't express opinions you disagree with on this board without you telling us to shut up and go away?

For one, this isn't an opinion thing, the game is not programmed to go against the user in the playoffs or anything like that.

[Rondell Tate]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

Why is it other people can't express opinions that you disagree with on this board, Rondell Tate, without you putting words in their mouth? All he told you to do was to chill out.

OK, I confess, I was paraphrasing. But I think telling somebody to "get over themselves" is rude.
Many posters think the game is rigged and have posted examples or shared their own concerns. Thank you.
Many others don't think it is and some of them have posted suggestions for how to get past the WS jinx or simply posted their hopeful results. Thank you.
Many others have simply said, in essence "No it isn't coded to be harder in the playoffs, you're wrong" without giving any proof, examples or anything else, just statements of their opinions as facts. I don't find those helpful, and many of them have been rude, condescending or otherwise hostile to those of us who honestly believe there's a trigger in the code to make the game play differently in the playoffs. As I noted in an earlier post, this is common in computer games (Sid Meier has admitted he coded AI "cheats" into the Civ games), so I don't see why it's far-fetched to think it might be the case here.
At any rate, I'm sorry to have even raised such a touchy subject ... as I noted in the original post, I had spent literally months playing out every single game of a season and I don't have the heart to go through that again right now, so I'll go play a different game for a while.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...m-members.html

[Carplos]

Markus has said multiple times there is nothing programmed into the game to make it more difficult for the user, playoffs or whenever. Yeesh.

Of course, Markus could be lying I suppose, but I haven't the slightest idea why he would lie, much less program a bias against the user in the first place.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Rondell Tate

Many others have simply said, in essence "No it isn't coded to be harder in the playoffs, you're wrong" without giving any proof, examples or anything else, just statements of their opinions as facts.

Recounting your particular lack of success in the post-season is not exactly evidence of the game being deliberately coded that way either. It's subject to a huge variety of factors, not the least of which is sample size and confirmation bias. Or, as it is often put, correlation does not equal causation.

[Killing Time]

Originally Posted by Rondell Tate

Many others have simply said, in essence "No it isn't coded to be harder in the playoffs, you're wrong" without giving any proof, examples or anything else, just statements of their opinions as facts.

The guy who wrote the code has told us straight up that the game isn't coded to be harder in the playoffs. That's not enough "proof, examples or anything else" for you?

You lost. The game didn't cheat you, it wasn't "rigged" and there wasn't any "separate difficulty level that switches on in the World Series" involved. You just lost. It happens to me and to all the other guys in this thread and what do you know, now it even happens to you. Bad things like this can happen to good people. It's part of life. Sometimes what happens can be really frustrating. It's important to know how to deal with things like this and to take responsibility for our own actions instead of blaming imaginary causes.

Hi everyone, my name is K.T. and I've lost an OOTP World Series or two before that I was sure that I should have won. Losing made me frustrated but I learned from the experience and got past it. Call me a friend of Bill.

Bill James that is.

[Rondell Tate]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Markus has said multiple times there is nothing programmed into the game to make it more difficult for the user, playoffs or whenever. Yeesh.

Of course, Markus could be lying I suppose, but I haven't the slightest idea why he would lie, much less program a bias against the user in the first place.

Markus also said two-pitch pitchers wouldn't be effective starters with the new pitch rating system, but there's a guy in my online pool whose 2-3-4 starters have six pitches between them ...

Look, it's a game, and if the outcome of a game, any game, is hardcoded in, people give up because it's a futile exercise, or if it's too easy, people get bored. That's why game designers fudge the numbers and that's why Markus would be motivated to not admit any ... irregularities. The perfect game, players almost win regularly ... it keeps 'em coming back. Just walk through a carnival midway, or look at Millionaire on TV and you will see this principle over and over again.

It might be there isn't any special coding; it might be the AI is simply overwhelmed trying to manage something as complicated as a 162-game season, so we develop house rules to make the game interesting, and then the game can manage the relatively simple playoff, so all of a sudden the AI gets competent (and harder by comparison). There's plenty of empirical evidence that the first part of that supposition is true ... anybody find it hard winning the regular season with a decent team? Anybody? Nope. The game still makes too many small strategic and tactical errors that add up over a season for that. Just playing out the games increases my winning percentage by about 100 points because I don't do things like leading off with my catcher, or bench my best shortstop or any of the other things people debate endlessly on these threads.

And that's what I and others have been presenting, is evidence suggesting the game, for whatever reason, has a separate difficulty level for the post-season.

Look at the Denver thread ... he's been playing out the whole thing publicly, season after season, and every year the result is the same. He's been playing it out so there's no possible bias created by selectively remembering only results that fit the theory.

And that is the result -- comfortable regular season win, playoff loss after playoff loss -- that many of us are reporting, ad nauseum. Is it proof that Markus has coded in game "cheats"? No. I haven't seen anybody saying SEE! I proved there's code. Is it proof that for whatever reason, an inordinate number of seasons have that same story arc? Yes.

At some point, some of us decide that the argument from authority ("Confucius said" is the classic example, or in this case "Markus said") isn't cutting it and instead heed Einstein's advice that repeating the same experiment over and over and hoping for a different result is madness ...

[Jamee999]

What about the times when users do win the WS but don't post about it in this thread?

[Killing Time]

Rondell Tate, so what you are saying is that Markus is lying about the code he wrote and deceiving us all and that because you and a few other people can't win the World Series that the game is therefore "rigged" and has a "separate difficulty level that switches on in the World Series"? In spite of explanations in this thread as to how what happened to you made perfect historical and baseball sense and in spite of Markus' word on the matter?

I have seen some really sore losers in my time, but this wins the grand prize and the bag of chips. Your argument that if you lost a World Series that it could not have been bad luck or your fault or a combination of the two but that you must have been cheated out of the World Series win you so richly deserved by hidden code written just to frustrate players like you is nonexistent. Just to begin with there is no motivation at all for Markus to ever write code like that.

Seriously and no offense intended have you thought about only playing games with cheat codes so that you can win all the time and not get so upset like this?

[Ragnar]

Just because a team wins 100 games does not automatically mean they will win or should win the championship. This game has always angered the crap out of me, but the #'s do add up.

Look back at your schedule, did you win every series? Probably lost some to crap teams. So it is no big surprise that you won't win 3 in a row against the best teams in the league.

The regular season is not do or die, the playoffs are. So you take the season as a whole and consider it a success. When the playoffs come, you have to win each series, record doesn't matter.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by jasonn29tn14

Tony LaRussa must have felt the same way in October 1988.

And Earl Weaver in 1969.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Markus has said multiple times there is nothing programmed into the game to make it more difficult for the user, playoffs or whenever. Yeesh.

Of course, Markus could be lying I suppose, but I haven't the slightest idea why he would lie, much less program a bias against the user in the first place.

You really can't figure out why a programmer would lie about programming an AI cheat into a game? Hm.