Every young major leaguer with collapsing ratings at once

[voxpoptart]

Originally Posted by TLB1975

In my leagues, I don't see enough young prospect pitchers with injuries that ruin their career vs delay their development. I often see prospect pitchers with 4-12 month arm injuries with the only consequence being they miss a year of development

That was my impression too, but you're going on a lot more experience with recent versions. There's a reason I've contained my talk to batters: young real-life pitchers do experience sudden drops in potential, sometimes from the kind of injury that puts them on the DL, sometimes from hidden injury that just damages their command or their velocity. I'm not convinced OOTP pitcher development is volatile enough, even -- but i haven't seen nearly enough to say.

Pitchers in real life are more likely than hitters to see sudden increases in Potential (Jacob DeGrom, Collin McHugh, Danny Salazar), but as with hitters, I don't think the game should have that happen without being accompanied by equally sudden and large jumps in current ability -- even if the new Potential stays ahead of the new Current Rating, it should stay ahead by the same amount it was before. And I don't think Scouts should pick up on the new Potential, in either case, until the player's had a decent number of games to show off their new abilities in.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Its your setup, it has nothing to do with TCR or development. You're league/database is adjusting itself.

For some reason the talent initially created isn't as good as the talent created via draft.

The day OOTP get rid of overall Current & Potential ratings. I will be the happiest guy on the forums. Too much emphasis put on it rather than individual ratings.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I hate responses like this. You shouldn't have to change any settings to make the game more realistic. The most realistic settings should be the default settings. That way if you want to play in a manner that is different from reality, you can change the default settings and know that you are changing it from the baseline of reality towards whatever fictional universe you are trying to achieve.

Chill man these are the not devs talking. We can't change the code. The poster was simply trying to present a work around. Note the problem in bugs if you want the Devs to look at. In this forum you will see people who are genuinely trying to help others get the game they want. That sometimes means a work around by changing settings until the devs patch the game.

The devs do read these forums but can't read every post. If you think something is breaking the game post it in bugs or future suggestions for dev attention. Here you find players who are trying to help other players get what they want. Not Devs defending the code.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

It just seems common here to suggest changing the settings as a fix as opposed to trying to figure out if the default settings are a problem and need to be addressed by the devs.

That is what the bug reports and future suggestions are for. Again this forum is general discussion. It is players helping other players. It is not the best forum to get the devs attention. They have specific threads and forums for that.

See this forum.

OOTP 16 - Technical Support
If you have problems with the game, please see here.

The bug thread.

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...rt-thread.html

Yes this issue is a possible bug. Yes changing talent change randomness may work around the bug which is what this forum is for.

"Note: Thread will be opened after release.

THIS THREAD IS FOR BUG REPORTS ONLY!

A product as complex as OOTP will never release without bugs. There will be thousands of people playing and they will find things we did not discover.

If the game does not run for you at all, please check here: How do I get technical support?

If you have problems activating the game read this: Activation Problems

This thread is NOT for discussing possible issues with the real roster set though! Please report these here: Please post issues in the real roster sets here!

This thread is for PROPER bug reporting! If you find a bug, please post a detailed explanation here, and also upload your league files! (Does not apply to purely cosmetic bugs, here a screenshot should be enough). Please zip the league files (just the *.dat files, you find your saved games in your My Documents folder within the Out of the Park Developments folder, i.e. "My Documents/Out of the Park Developments/OOTP Baseball 16/saved_games". FTP the zipped league files to our support server (instructions here: How to FTP files to OOTP Developments ) and add the league file name to your post. IMPORTANT: Bug reports without uploaded league files will be ignored!

Thanks, and enjoy the game! "

Too many people just complain here and go on and on about bugs without ever reporting the bug and uploading the league files. Markus needs those files to determine what is happening and why.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by ra7c7er

I wasn't implying you were saying that I was saying that's my opinion of what should be happening. Most younger player should get better even if just a little bit for a few years. Granted some will tank and never make it and obviously most will never be stars but for the most part most younger players should have small increases every year.

That's not how it works IRL. Young players often outperform expectations, regress, then get worse again before settling into a better statistical representation of their talent. That talent still fluctuates more than observations suggest. I would say it is the rare superstar who shows linear improvement into their peak seasons. OOTP does a good job of representing player stat output but prior to TCR it was too easy to predict the few years around the junction of rise/peak/fall. Now you face a bigger dilemma both getting rid of and acquiring players in the junction range above.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

That is what the bug reports and future suggestions are for. Again this forum is general discussion. It is players helping other players. It is not the best forum to get the devs attention. They have specific threads and forums for that.


Too many people just complain here and go on and on about bugs without ever reporting the bug and uploading the league files. Markus needs those files to determine what is happening and why.

I understand what you are saying but not everyone knows what is and isn't a bug. My "questionable AI" thread is one such place. I've posted a bunch of stuff in there that may or may not be bugs. Really I'm just looking for feedback from the community on whether they are or aren't. I assume (maybe bad assumption) that others do that as well. I'd be more accepting of the kinds of answers I say I don't like if the member prefaced it with "This is a bug and should be reported, however, here is a fix in the meantime" or something like that.

[voxpoptart]

This is certainly not just a bug. It has been a feature of the game's system at least since OOTP4, and into the present day, that a young major league player is significantly more likely to go way downhill than a similar player in his mid-to-late 20s.

I am facing an extreme example, and that seems to be a result of using the game's (intentionally included) feature of specified age ranges. But I've never done that before, and it's always been true that young players decline the fastest in OOTP. It's a design philosophy. I will bring it up in the Suggestions forum. I will make the arguments I've made here. But I used this forum because the problem's existence is more-than-not intentional, and I wanted a work-around. I found something that might help -- thanks, again, TB! -- so I'll call it a success.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by voxpoptart

As I stated up front, I would love to see the developers rethink their whole basis of prospect development. I think real-life potential almost never goes way down except in the case of illness, injury, or passing peak age (hence the number of late-blooming formerly-hot prospects). For that matter, I don't think it ever goes *up* except in cases where it's matched to visible progress on the field. (Matt Adams's potential, or Mookie Betts's, went up as they made changes that caused their performance to exceed expectations. In OOTP a guy can be sitting in Rookie League waiting for the season to start and suddenly have his potential skyrocket. Literally.)

The thing is, with the way OOTP works, stats don't create ratings, ratings create stats. Every outcome of every at-bat is directly based off of the players' internal ratings, so it's those ratings that need to rise before the player will show any statistical improvement. Then when the player is next re-scouted, he is completely re-evaluated based on those ratings, and his potential skyrockets or plummets. There'd be no way to change how the development works in this manner without re-writing the game engine to produce stats before a player's internal ratings start going up - which is completely incongruous with how most of us would like the game to play out.

The possible solution here is to code those talent changes to happen over time, rather than in the span of a day. So if the game randomly selects a player to get a talent boost, his ratings will gradually go up month-by-month, and he'll go from 1-star to 4-stars over the course of a season, instead of overnight.

I think I'll add that to my list of suggestions for OOTP17, actually... whenever I get around to writing it.

[Anyone]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I understand what you are saying but not everyone knows what is and isn't a bug. My "questionable AI" thread is one such place. I've posted a bunch of stuff in there that may or may not be bugs. Really I'm just looking for feedback from the community on whether they are or aren't. I assume (maybe bad assumption) that others do that as well. I'd be more accepting of the kinds of answers I say I don't like if the member prefaced it with "This is a bug and should be reported, however, here is a fix in the meantime" or something like that.

I think in this thread you're confusing "not behaving as the OP would like" with "unrealistic."

I play with a very low TCR of 20 (even slightly less than the 22 suggested). This does make careers more predictable, and for whatever reason I like it that way.

I also am pretty certain in my game they're more predictable than real life. I don't know if TCR of 100 is perfect realism, though I'm pretty sure it's closer than my setting. I choose my setting as you say (as with my editing the injuries file to greatly shorten the long injuries)-- knowing I'm departing from reality, but it's how I prefer my universe.

Lowering TCR was suggested, wisely IMO, as a means of getting the game to behave more as the OP wants. I think it will help him. It will probably be less realistic, but it will help him with what he wants, as it does with me.

One other thing: Of course there isn't true "random" talent change in real life; there are reasons we don't know about, often the player and his coaches and manager don't know about (particularly in the case of lost talent), where a player will lose or gain talent in a way that no one could have foreseen. That's what TCR simulates.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by voxpoptart

This is certainly not just a bug. It has been a feature of the game's system at least since OOTP4, and into the present day, that a young major league player is significantly more likely to go way downhill than a similar player in his mid-to-late 20s.
.

Which is exactly realistic. The Oakland A's using "moneyball" noted this and started drafting college players. It is very apparent looking at the data that tons of 5 tool high school prospects have crashed and burned since the draft started. College players simply fare better in getting to the minors and the scouted potential being closer to what actually happens.

College shows if a player has the maturity and work ethic to develop the skills beyond talent. This just isn't baseball. How many 4 and 5 star college football recruits flop when natural athleticism is no longer enough to overpower their opposition?

In the history of the draft years high school players (very young players) are more likely not to develop the scouted potential than college players. For many the jump is just way too big for their maturity level. The vast majority would be better off getting a scholarship if they can clear NCAA rules and developing the maturity and work ethic needed for the long haul to the bigs vs. getting in the draft right out of HS. In college they can redshirt a year to learn what kind of work it is going to take to make the team. In the minors they don't get that luxury.

[Anyone]

Originally Posted by ra7c7er

IMO nearly every young player should get "better" every year till they hit roughly 25-26ish. Then it becomes a bit more random and after a player hits mid thirties most players should be declining. You could still have random jumps or fall backs but for the most part you should see trends.

Typically, young players get better until about 25, at which point they stabilize for the rest of their 20's, but far from all.

But what really made me feel a need to comment was that you suggested that non-random decline should tend to happen in the mid thirties, when that would be horribly unrealistic. People don't realize how fast decline begins in real life.

Most players who peak as average players are near-worthless by 31-32. Most players who peak as good players, "minor stars" so to speak, are near-worthless by 33-34.

We don't think of them, because they're no longer in the league and, while good (at least the "minor stars" were good in their prime), are forgettable (think Kevin McReynolds or Ryan Klesko). Even those who were the major stars and could remain valuable well into their 30's were almost never still major stars after their mid-thirties.

Everyone knows that Willie Mays was a superstar, one of the top 20 players ever (a conservative estimate, as most would say top 10). But his last superstar-like year was in 1965, when he was 34. He was still very good in '66 at 35, but if that had been his best year he wouldn't be the all-time great he is. When he was 36 in '67 he was nothing special at all, except that he could still at least be useful at 36, which is rare.

I know the OOTP devs know this, but the public should realize it: Almost all real life players decline badly after 30; and unless a player is a superstar in his prime, he'll almost always be useless by about 34.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by Anyone

I think in this thread you're confusing "not behaving as the OP would like" with "unrealistic."

I wasn't confusing anything. It was the OP that claimed he wasn't getting realistic results, not me.

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I wasn't confusing anything. It was the OP that claimed he wasn't getting realistic results, not me.

Yes he claimed that something was unrealistic, but he provided no supporting data to validate that claim. IMO, he gave his experience/impression, not data and facts. And I provide him my suggestion that might help him achieve the experience he wants.

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

The thing is, with the way OOTP works, stats don't create ratings, ratings create stats.

The possible solution here is to code those talent changes to happen over time, rather than in the span of a day. So if the game randomly selects a player to get a talent boost, his ratings will gradually go up month-by-month, and he'll go from 1-star to 4-stars over the course of a season, instead of overnight.

Great Post. You clearly defined the why and a possible solution.

A few thoughts. I get that the real ratings create the stats and that for a young prospect there is a large gap between his real ratings and his potential ratings. What I don't understand is why do the potential ratings drop so significantly when the real ratings are producing solid stats at a minor or even major league level? Wouldn't it be better if the potential ratings stayed fairly consistent but the real ratings stopped improving? So the gap between the two stops narrowing. Why not let the stats fall off first and then have the potential decline? A players potential would still be high (Lastings Milledge), but because his hidden, real ratings did not improve, the stats suffered. And then after the stats suffered, the potential rating begins to drop.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I wasn't confusing anything. It was the OP that claimed he wasn't getting realistic results, not me.

A claim of unrealistic results from a modified ie unrealistic initial player pool must be viewed differently. There can be no expectations that out of the box settings should work.

That being said I don't think voxpoptart actually said it was unrealistic results ie stats. He has a problem with the development/aging module which is certainly worth discussion. He seemed open to suggestions which is a breath of fresh air in recent threads.

You misread the OP and made it about you, again.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by TLB1975

Yes he claimed that something was unrealistic, but he provided no supporting data to validate that claim. IMO, he gave his experience/impression, not data and facts. And I provide him my suggestion that might help him achieve the experience he wants.

Your post implied that you accepted his claim that it was unrealistic and that a specific fix was needed to make it more realistic since you never questioned his premise.

Originally Posted by RchW

A claim of unrealistic results from a modified ie unrealistic initial player pool must be viewed differently. There can be no expectations that out of the box settings should work.

That being said I don't think voxpoptart actually said it was unrealistic results ie stats. He has a problem with the development/aging module which is certainly worth discussion. He seemed open to suggestions which is a breath of fresh air in recent threads.

You misread the OP and made it about you, again.

No idea how I made it about me but whatever.

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

No idea how I made it about me but whatever.

To Quote your first post on this thread "I hate responses like this"

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Your post implied that you accepted his claim that it was unrealistic and that a specific fix was needed to make it more realistic since you never questioned his premise.



No idea how I made it about me but whatever.

You made the claim that it should work out of the box, but you didn't understand or care what the problem actually was. It was more important to get your mission statement in early; on topic or not.

Maybe you should actually read what people post.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by TLB1975

To Quote your first post on this thread "I hate responses like this"

Which was an echo of what others have complained about as well. Perhaps I should have said "we"?

Originally Posted by RchW

You made the claim that it should work out of the box, but you didn't understand or care what the problem actually was. It was more important to get your mission statement in early; on topic or not.

Maybe you should actually read what people post.

I was using the same assumptions that the first reply used. I never agreed he was seeing unrealistic results. I merely said that if you are going to post assuming his premise is correct then don't tell him to change the settings as the way to get more realistic results or at least don't have that response as the "end all and be all" of the discussion.

[voxpoptart]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

It is very apparent looking at the data that tons of 5 tool high school prospects have crashed and burned since the draft started. College players simply fare better in getting to the minors and the scouted potential being closer to what actually happens.

That's true but completely off topic. Young players already succeeding in the major leagues rarely crash and burn and lose all their potential, in real life, without a severe injury or illness (although it's not uncommon for them to take a step or two backwards, retaining their potential). This is why studies have been making it clear since the Bill James Baseball Abstracts that, in real life, a 20-year-old with a stat line in the major leagues has three times the projected career value of a 23-year-old with the same stat line -- who in turn has twice the value of a 25-year-old with the same stat line. It is because Ruben Sierra aside, most young successful major leaguers will progress, and often progress into superstardom.

That is what has never been successfully mirrored by OOTP, where it has been a regular feature of the game all along that some batters peak, as solid major league regulars, at 20 or 23, and soon fall out of the majors never to return. It doesn't seem to distinguish unfulfilled potential from already-filled potential -- and real life does.

****
I will say, however, that TB1975 offered me a possible solution that will reduce the game's realism in the sense of making careers more predictable, and I'm partly taking him up on it (I've reduced TCR to 44 for now) because I think I'll like his version of unrealism better.

I've also defined a home rule to inject *more* talent changes back into the game: a hundred games into every season, starting this one, I'm going over the pitching and batting WAR leaderboards at every minor league level, and giving everyone in the top eight a weighted chance (based on their Work Ethic, Intelligence, and coaches) in a random number generation. The winning batter and winning pitcher at each level get an across the board ratings and potential boost, courtesy of me in Editor Mode: they're having a good year because they figured something important out. I'll see, over time, if that works.