Team is Worse Playing Play By Play

[mrbadguy]

I do find this to be a bt of an issue, although stealing for me in 23 is much better than before. In 20-21 I basically had to run double steals to get "50 steal guys" to 50 steals.
I do find play by play different. SO MANY times i will sim to late in the game. My starter will have gone 7 innings, 2 hits, 10 KS. then I take over and he gives up a quick 4 runs.

ALSO 99% of my blown saves come play by play.

EXample for the 3 years before I acquired Rollie Fingers he had blown an average of 2-3 games a year, while saving around 25 games.
In the first 3 years as my closer who blew between 9-13 games a year, while saving between 25-30 games.

Same pitcher, same ratings (actually better with me), great DEF behind him.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by mrbadguy

I do find this to be a bt of an issue, although stealing for me in 23 is much better than before. In 20-21 I basically had to run double steals to get "50 steal guys" to 50 steals.
I do find play by play different. SO MANY times i will sim to late in the game. My starter will have gone 7 innings, 2 hits, 10 KS. then I take over and he gives up a quick 4 runs.

ALSO 99% of my blown saves come play by play.

EXample for the 3 years before I acquired Rollie Fingers he had blown an average of 2-3 games a year, while saving around 25 games.
In the first 3 years as my closer who blew between 9-13 games a year, while saving between 25-30 games.

Same pitcher, same ratings (actually better with me), great DEF behind him.

Simple random chance? Have you gotten any players via FA or trade that did better with your team when you played out games?

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There are some small adjustments to balance out the user doing things the AI doesn't. Ie. You used to be able to hit "steal base" every pitch even with a guy with a low speed rating and could still force him to 400 steals in a year. Similarly if you hit take pitch a bunch of times before swinging away, that's something the AI doesn't do while simming, so there are things to balance that out.

But if people think there's a completely different engine, and further to that, we go out of our way to make your in-game experience worse and frustrating, I don't really know how to convince you otherwise.

Some complain the developers don't post as much as they used to. I don't think that is true but, the complaints are there.

If true do those users, that think developers don't post as often, really wonder why?
When they do post they are dismissed and not believed.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by mrbadguy

I do find this to be a bt of an issue, although stealing for me in 23 is much better than before. In 20-21 I basically had to run double steals to get "50 steal guys" to 50 steals.
I do find play by play different. SO MANY times i will sim to late in the game. My starter will have gone 7 innings, 2 hits, 10 KS. then I take over and he gives up a quick 4 runs.

ALSO 99% of my blown saves come play by play.

EXample for the 3 years before I acquired Rollie Fingers he had blown an average of 2-3 games a year, while saving around 25 games.
In the first 3 years as my closer who blew between 9-13 games a year, while saving between 25-30 games.

Same pitcher, same ratings (actually better with me), great DEF behind him.

So it only happens when you take over and not when just watching play by play?

As for the Rollie Fingers example did he have the same ratings for those 6 years in the player editor? Or just what your scout told you?

So again only happens when you're in control and not if you let the AI do the play by play?

[drowssap]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There are some small adjustments to balance out the user doing things the AI doesn't. Ie. You used to be able to hit "steal base" every pitch even with a guy with a low speed rating and could still force him to 400 steals in a year. Similarly if you hit take pitch a bunch of times before swinging away, that's something the AI doesn't do while simming, so there are things to balance that out.

I get that but as I have said now 3 times, I ONLY do substitutions and pitching changes. Nothing else.



Others have seen it, so this isn't in a vacuum. Something weird is going on.



If you want me to sim this year multiple times, I'm willing to do it, but to do play by play one season can take me a couple of months since I work for a living and have a disabled wife.

[Baby Ruth]

I've seen similar occurrences for years. I'll sim to the 6th inning, be up my 4, and then give up 5 runs in the 9th inning. I'm not saying it happens more than it should, but it happens frequently enough to be a pattern.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There are some small adjustments to balance out the user doing things the AI doesn't. Ie. You used to be able to hit "steal base" every pitch even with a guy with a low speed rating and could still force him to 400 steals in a year. Similarly if you hit take pitch a bunch of times before swinging away, that's something the AI doesn't do while simming, so there are things to balance that out.
.

What are these things to balance that out? The only THING should be the AI adjusting it's strategy to combat that. So please elaborate on what these "things" are that "balance out", whatever that means. What's being balanced?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by mrbadguy

I do find this to be a bt of an issue, although stealing for me in 23 is much better than before. In 20-21 I basically had to run double steals to get "50 steal guys" to 50 steals.
I do find play by play different. SO MANY times i will sim to late in the game. My starter will have gone 7 innings, 2 hits, 10 KS. then I take over and he gives up a quick 4 runs.

ALSO 99% of my blown saves come play by play.

EXample for the 3 years before I acquired Rollie Fingers he had blown an average of 2-3 games a year, while saving around 25 games.
In the first 3 years as my closer who blew between 9-13 games a year, while saving between 25-30 games.

Same pitcher, same ratings (actually better with me), great DEF behind him.

If you're in a 1970s environment with Fingers, save rates were around 70% back then instead of the 90%+ you see today. Fingers himself had blown save rates pretty close to the ones you're experiencing. You didn't really see the "1-3 inning lead coming in fresh in the 9th" style saves unless they came in context (like the pitcher had just been lifted for a PH the inning before) and closers were used more like the "stopper" role the game has, where they pop in whenever it's close and late and often stay in.

It might be that you use him "right" while the AI was using him "wrong". I do think that using a Fingers (or a Quiz or a Kent Tekulve) gives you a better chance to win overall even with the blown saves but I guess YMMV.

[dcordash]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There are some small adjustments to balance out the user doing things the AI doesn't. Ie. You used to be able to hit "steal base" every pitch even with a guy with a low speed rating and could still force him to 400 steals in a year. Similarly if you hit take pitch a bunch of times before swinging away, that's something the AI doesn't do while simming, so there are things to balance that out.

But if people think there's a completely different engine, and further to that, we go out of our way to make your in-game experience worse and frustrating, I don't really know how to convince you otherwise.

No one in their rational brain would believe the development team are "intentionally" trying to make this game worse and alienate customers. But, that is the operative word "intentionally".

Said it before, I really have compassion for the developer's of OOTP that have inherited a game that's been around for decades (who can even guess how much code that could potentially be), reportedly has very little documentation, and is inundated with settings that are counterintuitive to the average customer, formula's that contradict each other, weighted measures that likely cancel each other, and on and on.

No, Matt, I personally think you're doing your best with what you got. Reason I suggest maybe things change. Vital timely documentation gets created and ya start back at square one with a rewrite.

Then the staff would know what they have and, for a time anyway, the customer's might have a better experience and not complain as much.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by dcordash

Then the staff would know what they have and, for a time anyway, the customer's might have a better experience and not complain as much.

Things not being comprehensively documented publicly does not mean that we do not know how things work privately. We do know what we have. When Matt says how this works, he's not just guessing or saying how it should work in theory, he's privy to how it actually does work, given he probably wrote most of the code himself

Knowing how things work ourselves, and somehow finding the enormous amount of time and manpower that would be required to properly update public documentation are two completely different things. Not having (yet) been able to do the latter is no way an indication that somehow we don't know the former.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Baby Ruth

I've seen similar occurrences for years. I'll sim to the 6th inning, be up my 4, and then give up 5 runs in the 9th inning. I'm not saying it happens more than it should, but it happens frequently enough to be a pattern.

Then start documenting it every time it happens, try and include as much data as you can if not also providing game files.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen but the only way to prove that it is happening is lots and lots of documentation that shows it in enough light that it can't be ignored anymore.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Things not being comprehensively documented publicly does not mean that we do not know how things work privately. We do know what we have. When Matt says how this works, he's not just guessing or saying how it should work in theory, he's privy to how it actually does work, given he probably wrote most of the code himself

That said, the actual language used by even the individual you mentioned in various posts suggests a less than comprehensive understanding of at least certain key game mechanics, and is not supplemented by any additional and more authoritative-sounding posts by any other employee. At a minimum, therefore, doubts such as those you are addressing here are- even if ultimately unwarranted- hardly unreasonable.

Knowing how things work ourselves, and somehow finding the enormous amount of time and manpower that would be required to properly update public documentation are two completely different things. Not having (yet) been able to do the latter is no way an indication that somehow we don't know the former.

Past negligence is no justification for its perpetuation. The reason for the current situation is that budgeting time and resources for adequate documentation has somehow been considered optional. To cite the accumulated insufficiency resulting from this mindset as prohibitive to remedying the situation in anything but perhaps some indefinite future is less than satisfying as both an ownership of creating the problem or commitment to rectifying it.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Then start documenting it every time it happens, try and include as much data as you can if not also providing game files.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen but the only way to prove that it is happening is lots and lots of documentation that shows it in enough light that it can't be ignored anymore.

Just to note as well that I play out every single game in my league from the 7th inning on. I've now been doing this for 2 straight in-game seasons and across 2 versions. I completely do not see this occurring. I do substitutions only (baserunning seems too easy to cheese, and defense feels like too much of the "pitting my brain against itself" stuff that doesn't really work) and do not use the warmup option (which the AI also does not use and which therefore is not used in sims), so those could be things affecting this. That said, while I do see teams come back, I also see teams extend leads and I just plain have not grokked a difference. If there's a trend my brain puts together at all, it's that extra inning games have a tendency to drone on forever, but there too I have no actual data to support that, just the fact that I get annoyed when a game takes 20 minutes for me to complete instead of like 5.

To the other thing that's getting raised here... speaking as a dev, asking devs to provide extensive documentation seems like a fools' errand. We write code. We like to be presented with issues and then resolve them, or figure out how to add new features to a system that becomes a big mess pretty much by default (nothing against OOTPDev, and I've never even seen their code base; this is just a natural thing that happens to code that's maintained by any number of people over a number of years). We don't really like writing about the code; in fact, there's even a well-worn mantra within software development that generally speaking, if you have to document what a block of code does, you didn't write it very well in the first place.

I think ideally what you want is a technical writer to come in and write all of this up. Give them access to the code base of course and I'm sure that at times they're going to need to speak to a dev or two to understand stuff, but I do think that, given the choice between "add these features and fix these bugs" and "write about how the game engine works", nearly any developer is going to choose the former route.

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Things not being comprehensively documented publicly does not mean that we do not know how things work privately. We do know what we have. When Matt says how this works, he's not just guessing or saying how it should work in theory, he's privy to how it actually does work, given he probably wrote most of the code himself

Knowing how things work ourselves, and somehow finding the enormous amount of time and manpower that would be required to properly update public documentation are two completely different things. Not having (yet) been able to do the latter is no way an indication that somehow we don't know the former.

You have been a busy bee the last few days... and it is appreciated. Any thoughts on getting an intern to compile all the recent info, and older info, into a sticky so that you aren't having the same conversation again next summer?

[Pelican]

Not sure if this was part of the adjustment, but I actually appreciate having the runner start and stop, when I hit the steal button too often. I have no idea of the cause and effect; but over time it keeps the number of steals to a realistic number and a realistic success rate, taking into account the runner ability and the catcher’s arm and the pitcher’s pickoff ability. Same with “run and hit”, which sometimes will work with a good contact hitter and good basestealer; but there are pitchouts and pop up’s and line drive DP’s, too. As it should be.

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Things not being comprehensively documented publicly does not mean that we do not know how things work privately. We do know what we have. When Matt says how this works, he's not just guessing or saying how it should work in theory, he's privy to how it actually does work, given he probably wrote most of the code himself

Knowing how things work ourselves, and somehow finding the enormous amount of time and manpower that would be required to properly update public documentation are two completely different things. Not having (yet) been able to do the latter is no way an indication that somehow we don't know the former.

Well put.

I wish we could move away from this “malevolent developer” theory, which makes no commercial sense, in that it would ultimately be self-defeating. I just don’t see anything to support such a dark theory. But then I am not one to find a conspiracy behind every bug or flaw or unexpected result.

I appreciate the need that some have for documentation, even though that is not me at all. I am sorry that the effort to provide video tutorials, clearly as an effort to satisfy this need, has not been better received by this group. But I suspect that what some seek is not basic guidance but a peek under the hood to the actual coding. Again, I have no need for that (and candidly no ability to understand it), and would much rather find out about changes through experience, rather than have some kind of advance documentation. Learn by doing, rather than learn by reading about it in advance.

I don’t mean to criticize those who demand documentation or want to understand how programming has changed. Those were the guys (and girls!) who looked under the hood and tinkered, while I was happy to drive the car and do nothing more than pump gas and change oil. What I honestly don’t know, in this gaming context, is what obligation developers have to disclose coding secrets. Doesn’t that verge on an “intellectual property” issue? [Apologies. I am a lawyer.]. I don’t know how far that can go. To return to the car analogy, companies publish “shop manuals” for cars. But they don’t tell all. I guess there is a happy medium.

To me, far better to devote scarce human talent resources to improving the game, rather than documenting the improvements. But I do get that there should be a balance of some kind.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by quillenl

You have been a busy bee the last few days... and it is appreciated. Any thoughts on getting an intern to compile all the recent info, and older info, into a sticky so that you aren't having the same conversation again next summer?

TBF whoever it is who says this stuff next year, it will a. be slightly different from what's getting complained about this year, and b. whoever does the complaining is unlikely to listen to an intern. Frankly, these are Karen moments and the only way they are truly assuaged is if the boss answers or, failing that, a lead dev.

[tcblcommish]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

TBF whoever it is who says this stuff next year, it will a. be slightly different from what's getting complained about this year, and b. whoever does the complaining is unlikely to listen to an intern. Frankly, these are Karen moments and the only way they are truly assuaged is if the boss answers or, failing that, a lead dev.

Most people who get stuff in their head and complain about stuff that only happens to the user don't even believe the devs or the people that have been around forever with this game and have a scary amount of time on each version. It's kind of sad but people cling to a personal bias more than they do everything else

Sent from my SM-G998W using Tapatalk

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Well put.

I wish we could move away from this “malevolent developer” theory, which makes no commercial sense, in that it would ultimately be self-defeating. I just don’t see anything to support such a dark theory. But then I am not one to find a conspiracy behind every bug or flow or unexpected result.

I appreciate the need that some have for documentation, even though that is not me at all. I am sorry that the effort to provide video tutorials, clearly as an effort to satisfy this need, has not been better received by this group. But I suspect that what some seek is not basic guidance but a peek under the hood to the actual coding. Again, I have no need for that (and candidly no ability to understand it), and would much rather find out about changes through experience, rather than have some kind of advance documentation. Learn by doing, rather than learn by reading about it in advance.

I don’t mean to criticize those who demand documentation or want to understand how programming has changed. Those were the guys (and girls!) who looked under the hood and tinkered, while I was happy to drive the car and do nothing more than pump gas and change oil. What I honestly don’t know, in this gaming context, is what obligation developers have to disclose coding secrets. Doesn’t that verge on an “intellectual property” issue? [Apologies. I am a lawyer.]. I don’t know how far that can go. To return to. The car analogy, companies publish “shop manuals” for cars. But they don’t tell all. I guess there is a happy medium.

To me, far better to devote scarce human talent resources to improving the game, rather than documenting the improvements. But I do get that there should be a balance of some kind.

There's also bound to be a bit of an art to that: I don't think the majority of the players want to know the exact algorithm to determine anything/everything, but at the same time you want to have some kind of sensical explanation or else people go crazy interpreting stuff. I also just like having lots of data available to push through so that the data nerds on our side of things can run tests agnostic of what the devs say the ratings do and see how things work out.

For instance, CBeisbol recently re-posted the study he did on defense on OOTP21, which showed a negative correlation between fielders' arm and runs saved - the worse the arm, the more outs that fielder created (and therefore the more runs he saves). I think this was due in large part to the fact that there were waaaay too many baserunner kills until a patch that came out in the summer of last year but it's the kind of thing that can lead you to see that (also I still have a general sense that runners take OF arm into waaay too much of a consideration when attempting extra bases, but there's little that I can do to prove that one way or the other absent scraping the play-by-play). Even if a study like this uncovers nothing, it's a good way for you, the end user, to understand how the game works and reacts accordingly (and a study like this will often highlight unintended issues the devs didn't mean to create - for instance, that study also showed the MASSIVE differences that Catcher Ability generated, and while that in and of itself may not have been what caused OOTPD to turn that down / turn into an option, it's something that was out there that we could point to).

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

TBF whoever it is who says this stuff next year, it will a. be slightly different from what's getting complained about this year, and b. whoever does the complaining is unlikely to listen to an intern. Frankly, these are Karen moments and the only way they are truly assuaged is if the boss answers or, failing that, a lead dev.

That is true, but there is a LOT of stuff discussed on the boards over the years that provides detail to mechanics that are not in the manual. I suppose the reason for my question was less a "fend off the Karens" and more a "reference to look at for the rest of us". The comments about the database are pretty helpful when, for instance, I don't realize stamina for the current rosters is manual and not calculated like every other historical season you start.

I am betting there are plenty of older posts with facts from the devs I have missed, forgotten, or misremember that a stickied faq would be awesome for. Just a selfish ask on my part because it sounds simple but I know I don't darn well have the time to put one together

[jcard]

Expecting documentation sufficient to feel that one can make informed use of features in a product is a pretty low bar for being labeled a Karen or whatever other fashionable pejorative of the moment. Expressing dissatisfaction that this expectation has not been met and seems fated to remain in such a state for this foreseeable future is not tantamount to ascribing malevolent intent to those ostensibly responsible for (or, at least, representing those responsible for) preventing / addressing the disappointing status quo.

Generally speaking, the tendency-intentional or otherwise- of some individuals to mischaracterize the comments of others is tiresome.