Program Determination of Results

[RichardMartin99]

I have played OOTP 13, 14,15 and now 16.

I obviously love the game since I have managed at least 3 different
teams for a full season in 13, 14, and 15.

After extensive experience, I believe that the program predetermines
the outcome of a game from a point in the game.

If I am managing a team which is ahead, there is a point in the
game ( usually later but not always the same ) when I can feel
whether my team will hold the lead or blow the lead.
In these situations, I feel the program has " scripted " an end
to the game and I as a manager cannot change the final result.

Has anyone else noted this effect ?

Thanks, Richard

[Questdog]

Not in playing the game, but in life in general...yes....

[ra7c7er]

The algorithm created for the game uses to small of a scale for any sort of predetermined outcomes to happen as you describe. Except in the cases of teams highly outclassing their opponent.

The algorithm is dynamic based on many factors at any given time.

[Lou Gehrig]

Originally Posted by RichardMartin99

In these situations, I feel the program has " scripted " an end to the game and I as a manager cannot change the final result.

Has anyone else noted this effect ?

Thanks, Richard

Absolutely not. As a matter of fact there have been games which have been won when it appeared a losing effort was inevitable and the opposite when defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. Therefore I am not subscribing to a conspiracy theory.

I think you are "feeling" things that are not there. Check with your owner, you may need a small "leave of absence" to clear your head.

It's a great game Richard, enjoy it and remember you do make a difference.

[conception]

I've suspected some sort of gamesmanship with the in-game engine before. It's mostly because my team seems to lose games in unlikely (yet predictable fashion) incredibly often when I actually let the games play out through the in-game engine versus just simulating, where my team which frequently vastly outclasses the opponent wins a realistic percent of the time. So no, it's not just you that suspects this, and while I am sure a lot of people here will just assume it's sour grapes, I think there is some base.

For those who don't think there is some rigging to the AI, how many times do you have players on record pace get hit with a major injury?

[Lou Gehrig]

Originally Posted by conception

For those who don't think there is some rigging to the AI, how many times do you have players on record pace get hit with a major injury?

Apples and oranges. Maybe you guys need a developer to lay it out for you but I thought ra7c7er explained it fairly well.
I'm sure Markus and Company can expand the mechanics in greater detail.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Lou Gehrig

Apples and oranges. Maybe you guys need a developer to lay it out for you but I thought ra7c7er explained it fairly well.
I'm sure Markus and Company can expand the mechanics in greater detail.

Well, of course, if Markus is secretly torturing us, he is not going to admit it.....

For any argument of this type, you will need to collect a lot of cold, hard data before anyone can take it seriously.

[The Wolf]

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." - Anais Nin

How we perceive things that happen is determined not by the events themselves but by our own interior beliefs and how we view the world. Or, in simpler terms, what one man would see logically and reasonably might well trigger another man's religious views or perhaps a conspiracy theory. Where my biological grandfather, a religious leader, saw everything as being affected or even performed by various supernatural powers associated with natural phenomena - especially Coyote - I believe that everything can be explained logically, rationally and scientifically and can be quantified. And I don't believe in conspiracy theories.

But if you choose to do so, be aware of what this belief says about you to others.

[Padreman]

Originally Posted by RichardMartin99

I have played OOTP 13, 14,15 and now 16.

I obviously love the game since I have managed at least 3 different
teams for a full season in 13, 14, and 15.

After extensive experience, I believe that the program predetermines
the outcome of a game from a point in the game.

If I am managing a team which is ahead, there is a point in the
game ( usually later but not always the same ) when I can feel
whether my team will hold the lead or blow the lead.
In these situations, I feel the program has " scripted " an end
to the game and I as a manager cannot change the final result.

Has anyone else noted this effect ?

Thanks, Richard

Sorry but I disagree with you. I have played games and I have outcomes just like any real game. Come from behind wins, blow outs, thight games that go either way. To me it's like free will not predestination. It's not set in stone

[The Wolf]

"Empirical researchers are taught early on to beware of selection bias - drawing incorrect inferences from data which are nonrandomly sampled from a population. (An example would be concluding that early humans lived predominantly in caves, on the basis of finding paintings, remains of fire pits, and so forth there; because such artifacts are more likely to survive in caves than elsewhere, the available archaeological data are subject to selection bias). " - Christopher Zorn

[injury log]

There is no reason anyone would code a baseball game that way. Obviously OOTP is capable of simulating baseball without predetermining things. If OOTP did predetermine outcomes after a few innings, and customers found out, many would be mad. If OOTP did not predetermine things, everyone is happy. So why would the game developers predetermine outcomes?

Anyway, even if you think there might be a reason to code a baseball sim that way, I know for a fact, at least as well as I know most facts in this world, that OOTP outcomes are not predetermined.

[conception]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Well, of course, if Markus is secretly torturing us, he is not going to admit it.....

For any argument of this type, you will need to collect a lot of cold, hard data before anyone can take it seriously.

Why is it beyond comprehension that the game engine would be rigged to make winning easily a challenge even when a massive talent differential is at hand? Markus & Co. would have a really hard time selling a game where it was easy for people to go 120-40, there would be very little point. People need a game to be a challenge, and by doing a little rigging to ensure that overwhelming talent won't lead to overwhelming results, it keeps the game worth playing.

I'm not slamming Markus if he has done so, nor do I think it is bad practice to do so, but I wouldn't expect him to admit so. There's no point to letting people know that the game will cause them to lose even when they should win.

In the end, the game may not have any rigging at all, but that some think its such a ridiculous possibility aren't really thinking clearly about the reasons why there may be some mechanics in there.

I've seen developers of other sports games, ie Front Office Football, admit to similar rigging in order to generate what they considered realistic results. In this game, the in game engine will give bad teams token scores to avoid things like shutouts.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by conception

Why is it beyond comprehension that the game engine would be rigged to make winning easily a challenge even when a massive talent differential is at hand? Markus & Co. would have a really hard time selling a game where it was easy for people to go 120-40, there would be very little point. People need a game to be a challenge, and by doing a little rigging to ensure that overwhelming talent won't lead to overwhelming results, it keeps the game worth playing.

If you look around the forums a bit you'll see enough cases of people doing exactly that, going 120-40 or so, to dispel any theories of outcomes being rigged.

But even beyond that, there's just plain no rigging involved.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by conception

Markus & Co. would have a really hard time selling a game where it was easy for people to go 120-40, there would be very little point. People need a game to be a challenge, and by doing a little rigging to ensure that overwhelming talent won't lead to overwhelming results, it keeps the game worth playing.

The thing is, that's a testable hypothesis. If you think the game is rigged against the human player, you could just set up a 2-team league, edit all the players to be rated completely identically, 100/200 ratings in absolutely everything, turn off injuries and development, take over one team, then sim 10,000 games. Any number of wins between 4900 and 5100 would be totally normal if the game is not rigged (expected value is 5000, standard deviation is 50). If the game is rigged to be more difficult for you, you'd expect to win less than 4900 almost always, at least if the rigging has any observable effect.

I've done a lot of weird tests like that, and never found even the slightest evidence that the game is rigged.

[conception]

Originally Posted by injury log

The thing is, that's a testable hypothesis. If you think the game is rigged against the human player, you could just set up a 2-team league, edit all the players to be rated completely identically, 100/200 ratings in absolutely everything, turn off injuries and development, take over one team, then sim 10,000 games. Any number of wins between 4900 and 5100 would be totally normal if the game is not rigged (expected value is 5000, standard deviation is 50). If the game is rigged to be more difficult for you, you'd expect to win less than 4900 almost always, at least if the rigging has any observable effect.

I've done a lot of weird tests like that, and never found even the slightest evidence that the game is rigged.

My main suspicion is caused by in-game simulations causing different results than merely simming, and you'd have to do different tests to find that.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by conception

My main suspicion is caused by in-game simulations causing different results than merely simming, and you'd have to do different tests to find that.

You could do the same test, it will just take you fifty years.

[BusterKing]

Oh my, this subject again.

I'm sure we'll hear from Markus on this soon, a copy and paste job for him.

[conception]

Originally Posted by lukasberger

If you look around the forums a bit you'll see enough cases of people doing exactly that, going 120-40 or so, to dispel any theories of outcomes being rigged.

But even beyond that, there's just plain no rigging involved.

I've played OOTP heavily since 8, and I've never won 120 games with some unbelieavably loaded teams.

[Matt Arnold]

Trust me, it would be a lot harder to fake the results than to just let the real results play out.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Trust me, it would be a lot harder to fake the results than to just let the real results play out.

This.

So, to answer the original post: No.