Continued Unacceptable In-Game AI

[t-bone shuffle]

I'll start by establishing that I'm a great fan of this game, been playing since the first edition, and on a 1-10 scale this bothers me at about 6. But it bothers me at a level of 10 when I actually see it. It's been an issue as best I can remember since the rebuild after 6.5. So please regard this as constructive criticism, not an attempt to start anything.

Simply put, the AI replaces my injured 2B (Collins) with a player (Diaz) with ratings at 1B only, and leaves my utility guy (Ash), who's best rated at 2B, in at 1B where he started the game. Obviously, Diaz should have entered as 1B, with Ash moving to 2B, not rocket science.

The utility guy is listed as Utility 1 for all 4 infield positions, see below.

If this is my fail for poor lineup/utility prep, I'd love to know what I should be doing differently.

But I've been seeing this for years, and even railed about it in beta years ago to no avail. I'm certainly open to the idea that this doesn't happen in every case, I stopped watching for this years ago, but I'd wager it happens more often than it should (which is essentially never).

Bottom line is that this is a "little" thing with regards to individual instances. But, IMO, it's a big thing when we are looking for "realism" where it comes to the In-Game side of things. Disappointing to still be here in version 18.

Thus ends my every couple of years rant regarding this.

[NoOne]

they are on to bigger and better things.. so we get this and 2ip for setup pitchers, lol.

chop it up to a real-life equiv of a mistake in perception about a player... sometimes it's right, sometiems when they leave they blow up again (RL).

also, there are quite a few moving parts involved here... e.g. if you are a strong proponent for including a heavy amount of stats in player evaluation, you have brought at least some of this on yourself - as one example. scouting inaccuracy, bad scout, poor budgets, coach personality, overall roster strategy of GM's... the list is long.

you'd have to control each of those and change 1 at a time while the others remain the same and rinse and repeat with huge amounts of data to hash out if it's bad ai or just the culmination of various things that are modeled fro real life...

this isn't real life... while something things mimic it very well, logic is not something that will easily be reproduced... if it were, they wouldn't have GM's they'd have some program that made decisions for them based onthe inputs given, because at that point there's no way a human can compete, if it has proper logic.

this is like going to a pharmacy... they req'd them to be 'doctors' about ~18 years ago, instead of some being 2yr associates degrees or somethign like that... the pharmacologists' lobby group was behind it. and they all got 2x raises at least.

it was to protect their profession and nothing else. all of a sudden pharmacologists were making 100-150k in retail (midwest $... CA figur ~200k+ or more?). lobby group passed that law... plus, roughly same time period they develop some program that simplifies the process of fleshing out complications due to other medications and what else is available for those symptoms..

a human still double chekcs it... but it shouldn't require a doctorate in anything. (always trust a pharmacist > doctor on drugs, though.. don't get me wrong, a general MD is a child in comparison in sophisticated knowledge about various drugs. it is a needed profession, just in hospitals, not the service counter where thy get paid significantly more, i might add... so guess where the inconpetents and/or unusually socially conscious ones work? hospitals... flip a coin on that mess, lol.)

[DFyvie]

Yeah.. this always pi$$es me off too. I play out all my games so instead I see the opposing manager place his big lefty bat off the bench at Shortstop rather than put his utility infielder at the position when the starting shortstop gets hurt.

[t-bone shuffle]

Originally Posted by NoOne

they are on to bigger and better things.. so we get this and 2ip for setup pitchers, lol.

chop it up to a real-life equiv of a mistake in perception about a player... sometimes it's right, sometiems when they leave they blow up again (RL).

also, there are quite a few moving parts involved here... e.g. if you are a strong proponent for including a heavy amount of stats in player evaluation, you have brought at least some of this on yourself - as one example. scouting inaccuracy, bad scout, poor budgets, coach personality, overall roster strategy of GM's... the list is long.

you'd have to control each of those and change 1 at a time while the others remain the same and rinse and repeat with huge amounts of data to hash out if it's bad ai or just the culmination of various things that are modeled fro real life...

this isn't real life... while something things mimic it very well, logic is not something that will easily be reproduced... if it were, they wouldn't have GM's they'd have some program that made decisions for them based onthe inputs given, because at that point there's no way a human can compete, if it has proper logic.

this is like going to a pharmacy... they req'd them to be 'doctors' about ~18 years ago, instead of some being 2yr associates degrees or somethign like that... the pharmacologists' lobby group was behind it. and they all got 2x raises at least.

it was to protect their profession and nothing else. all of a sudden pharmacologists were making 100-150k in retail (midwest $... CA figur ~200k+ or more?). lobby group passed that law... plus, roughly same time period they develop some program that simplifies the process of fleshing out complications due to other medications and what else is available for those symptoms..

a human still double chekcs it... but it shouldn't require a doctorate in anything. (always trust a pharmacist > doctor on drugs, though.. don't get me wrong, a general MD is a child in comparison in sophisticated knowledge about various drugs. it is a needed profession, just in hospitals, not the service counter where thy get paid significantly more, i might add... so guess where the inconpetents and/or unusually socially conscious ones work? hospitals... flip a coin on that mess, lol.)

Uh, OK. I get that programming AI is a non-ending difficult process, and unquestionably in-game substitution AI is not terribly high on the priority list. But it's this type of thing that makes on-line play (for example) a bit of a farce.

I've witnessed massive AI improvements over the last 17+(?) years, so I'll never stop hoping that this issue in particular is resolved some day.

No sense in drawing this out. I just wanted the powers (Markus, et. al.) to know that these types of "reality" issues don't go unnoticed. As for perceived level of importance, YMMV.

[Hoiles]

I haven't really taken a close look at this, but I've never noticed the AI changing the defensive position of a player once he is already in the game. Am I correct on this?

Don't wanna sound like I'm letting anyone off the hook, but this is one area where the coding could get very complicated so I understand why. If they "correct this" issue then something else could be affected.

[t-bone shuffle]

Originally Posted by Hoiles

I haven't really taken a close look at this, but I've never noticed the AI changing the defensive position of a player once he is already in the game. Am I correct on this?

Don't wanna sound like I'm letting anyone off the hook, but this is one area where the coding could get very complicated so I understand why. If they "correct this" issue then something else could be affected.

To be honest, I don't recall with certainty, though my recollection is that this was not an issue in the original (1-6.5) versions, which is forever ago now, and irrelevant to boot.

I'll never buy the "difficulty of coding" position completely. This likely applies to virtually every aspect of the game. There'd be no game if they stopped at every difficult coding roadblock.

[eck.nicholas]

Originally Posted by Hoiles

I haven't really taken a close look at this, but I've never noticed the AI changing the defensive position of a player once he is already in the game. Am I correct on this?



Don't wanna sound like I'm letting anyone off the hook, but this is one area where the coding could get very complicated so I understand why. If they "correct this" issue then something else could be affected.

I have seen a few instances of a player changing positions midgame. I'm using Boston in the current season and Benentendi went from LF to CF when JBJ when down with an injury.

[Hoiles]

Fair enough. It's definitely an AI weakness everyone notices when they play enough games.

[eck.nicholas]

Originally Posted by Hoiles

Fair enough. It's definitely an AI weakness everyone notices when they play enough games.

True. I do believe that in today's era of Baseball, you can watch a lot of games without position changes though . If memory serves me well, I remember seeing more in the mid-90s.

Really depends on if it's a managerial setting in game or even an overall setting, or if they need to perhaps make it so.

[Hoiles]

Originally Posted by eck.nicholas

I have seen a few instances of a player changing positions midgame. I'm using Boston in the current season and Benentendi went from LF to CF when JBJ when down with an injury.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for this. I actually try to avoid making such switches to not give myself an "unfair advantage", but I can make an exception in this case.

[Hasta la vista pelota]

I agree with the OP, this is long past needing attention. Not a deal-breaker necessarily, but I'd rather see this fixed than adding associations and such.

In multi-player leagues, I should be able to, say, assign a starting CF to be able to move to left field and bring in a bench guy to play CF in the late innings for defensive purposes. You've been able to do this for years in Strat-O-Matic. I can't believe it can't be programmed in OOTP.

[dewelar]

Originally Posted by eck.nicholas

True. I do believe that in today's era of Baseball, you can watch a lot of games without position changes though . If memory serves me well, I remember seeing more in the mid-90s.

*nods* One of the results of teams carrying 1-2 fewer bench players than they did during that era (and 3-4 fewer than they did when I was growing up in the '70s).

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Hasta la vista pelota

I agree with the OP, this is long past needing attention. Not a deal-breaker necessarily, but I'd rather see this fixed than adding associations and such.

In multi-player leagues, I should be able to, say, assign a starting CF to be able to move to left field and bring in a bench guy to play CF in the late innings for defensive purposes. You've been able to do this for years in Strat-O-Matic. I can't believe it can't be programmed in OOTP.

It can be. All that is needed is to properly setup a depth chart and turn off the auto-sync lineups/depth chart feature. The problem is that the AI doesn't use the depth chart during the game when making substitutions.

[slugger922cubs]

The AI definately moves players around defensively. I've had players fill a Ben Zobrist like role many times. Start at 2b move to a corner OF spot. late in the game. Theres certainly a weakness in the AI but it does occasionally make wise moves on this front. The first time it did this too me. I actually didn't even know the player was capable of playing multiple positions so I was surprised. My guess is it may only move players down the defensive spectrum with a combination of stats and ratings which is why it will move from 2b to OF but not from 1b to 2b.
What it really should be doing when making substitutions is identifying why it's making the sub and then find the best player off the bench for that role. Then possible attempt to reassign defensive positions according to the spectrum with a check to not move many players.

[Lukas Berger]

We'll definitely be continuing to work on this and do what we can to improve things.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by t-bone shuffle

Uh, OK. I get that programming AI is a non-ending difficult process, and unquestionably in-game substitution AI is not terribly high on the priority list. But it's this type of thing that makes on-line play (for example) a bit of a farce.

I've witnessed massive AI improvements over the last 17+(?) years, so I'll never stop hoping that this issue in particular is resolved some day.

No sense in drawing this out. I just wanted the powers (Markus, et. al.) to know that these types of "reality" issues don't go unnoticed. As for perceived level of importance, YMMV.

i wasn't arguing against improving it... explaining why the motivation to do so isn't as strong as it should be... because sale improve more whne you keep adding new things and features, not necessarily fix old ones - although that's a portion of focus too, regardless.

if so many people weren't foggy-eyed saying, "oh, shiney" it would be improved more quickly.

it's not ootp's fault, it's the mob's fault.

any while it is definitely a problem, i also know a portion of those times we think we see something odd, that it really isnt.. i'm just deducting a bit more from my initial perception to account for that. their logic isn't so bad that i don't continue to buy it... they aren'y nefarious about it or anything... and i genuinely believe they want to fix it, but there is always distribution of resources that needs to be considered. remaining solvent trumps great AI... if people buy more due to new features, then you focus on that even if you still try to make older parts more efficient over time.

like you, i think 17 years afforded plenty of time to fix this... it's a reptitive and predictable process with a finite # of situations to account for... a simple matrix (looks complicated, but isn't). what's teh ROI? worth it? not yet, clearly.

[t-bone shuffle]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

We'll definitely be continuing to work on this and do what we can to improve things.

Thanks for the response Lukas.

[Bahnzo]

Originally Posted by NoOne

they are on to bigger and better things.. so we get this and 2ip for setup pitchers, lol.

The 2ip for setup guys has been bugging the crap outta me.

But I'd also like to add my backup C being used as a pinch hitter. I'd get it if he's the last left on the bench, or it's the 9th and a big situation and he's the best hitter on the bench. But my backup C is constantly being used as the first pinch hitter in the 6th inning or so and that drives me crazy. No manager would ever make that move.

[nebradska]

Originally Posted by NoOne

this is like going to a pharmacy... they req'd them to be 'doctors' about ~18 years ago, instead of some being 2yr associates degrees or somethign like that... the pharmacologists' lobby group was behind it. and they all got 2x raises at least.

it was to protect their profession and nothing else. all of a sudden pharmacologists were making 100-150k in retail (midwest $... CA figur ~200k+ or more?). lobby group passed that law... plus, roughly same time period they develop some program that simplifies the process of fleshing out complications due to other medications and what else is available for those symptoms..

a human still double chekcs it... but it shouldn't require a doctorate in anything. (always trust a pharmacist > doctor on drugs, though.. don't get me wrong, a general MD is a child in comparison in sophisticated knowledge about various drugs. it is a needed profession, just in hospitals, not the service counter where thy get paid significantly more, i might add... so guess where the inconpetents and/or unusually socially conscious ones work? hospitals... flip a coin on that mess, lol.)

What in the world are you on about? I'm a medical doctor and you just spouted a large amount of inaccurate drivel. Please don't delude yourself into thinking you're knowledgeable about this.

[Grafton19]

This is why I keep the main roster at 28 to 30 guys because when you have injuries set in, the AI will start to do ridiculous stuff because they only have so many guys to sub in. Sure we can fix it to get better, but there are some ways that help the game engineer itself better.