Why are so many players put on waivers when the Offseason begins?

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Paul Reuschel's Mustache

Good to know! So there's no sense in complaining about screwy AI roster management if the guy behind the game says that.

Writing an AI for a strategy game is pretty straightforward until you actually have to do it. Then it starts dawning on you that it's harder than all of the other stuff combined.

[Syd Thrift]

My thing has long been that I think the AI should make a series of “decisions” about a team (“player X is my starting 1B, I need an upgrade at shortstop”, and so on) and then stick by those for some amount of time. Obviously this can’t be an always/never sort of thing; players get hurt, vets fall apart, younger players get unexpected boosts. But I think you can account for this while having the AI for each individual team only doing a complete re-evaluation a couple times a year, let’s say. I think a lot of this stuff where the game used to sign a player and then release them immediately came from them being right on the cusp of being good enough, for example, and then being right on the other side. I think probably the game now has built in logic that says “if you sign someone keep them for x days”; what I’d prefer is for the game to be like “we’ve decided this is what our organization looks like for now; we’ll revisit this in July”.

Also, and this is something that’s both hard to code and which will undoubtedly make the AI less competitive, is that it really, really needs to incorporate Bayesian priors into the reasoning. At one extreme, you’ve got a 40 year old guy who scouts say has suddenly fallen off a cliff but has given you production for the past several years, you can’t just cut him or demote him to a backup role off of a single bad report. In that case it’s probably got to be at least a couple bad reports and some poor play afield as well. If you draft a guy in the first 5 rounds, you are not going to forsake them just because your scout - often the same guy who rated them highly enough to pick - now thinks they’re a bum. No, you’ll keep them and make them prove they can’t play because you’ve already sunk a lot of draft capital and a big signing bonus into them. This is how humans think and while there are exploitable flaws, these are human flaws, and I think that this in conjunction with that “this is our team and we’re sticking with it” mentality would, if not exactly make the AI smarter, would cut down on the particular issues people see.

[uruguru]

It's never that easy. That's all I'm saying. It's actually really difficult! I am speaking from personal experience. I wrote a pretty decent AI for my game but ultimately opened the source and that attracted a professional AI developer who basically spent an entire year writing an AI for it so that experienced players could get a proper challenge for it.

That game was functionally complete and several orders of magnitude less complex than OOTP. I can't even imagine the amount of effort and time required to write an expert AI for this game, and that's not even considering the constant tweaks and changes to the underlying feature set.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

My thing has long been that I think the AI should make a series of “decisions” about a team (“player X is my starting 1B, I need an upgrade at shortstop”, and so on) and then stick by those for some amount of time. Obviously this can’t be an always/never sort of thing; players get hurt, vets fall apart, younger players get unexpected boosts. But I think you can account for this while having the AI for each individual team only doing a complete re-evaluation a couple times a year, let’s say. I think a lot of this stuff where the game used to sign a player and then release them immediately came from them being right on the cusp of being good enough, for example, and then being right on the other side. I think probably the game now has built in logic that says “if you sign someone keep them for x days”; what I’d prefer is for the game to be like “we’ve decided this is what our organization looks like for now; we’ll revisit this in July”.

Also, and this is something that’s both hard to code and which will undoubtedly make the AI less competitive, is that it really, really needs to incorporate Bayesian priors into the reasoning. At one extreme, you’ve got a 40 year old guy who scouts say has suddenly fallen off a cliff but has given you production for the past several years, you can’t just cut him or demote him to a backup role off of a single bad report. In that case it’s probably got to be at least a couple bad reports and some poor play afield as well. If you draft a guy in the first 5 rounds, you are not going to forsake them just because your scout - often the same guy who rated them highly enough to pick - now thinks they’re a bum. No, you’ll keep them and make them prove they can’t play because you’ve already sunk a lot of draft capital and a big signing bonus into them. This is how humans think and while there are exploitable flaws, these are human flaws, and I think that this in conjunction with that “this is our team and we’re sticking with it” mentality would, if not exactly make the AI smarter, would cut down on the particular issues people see.

So if AI only evaluates the organization twice a year, how does it do trades or promotions, or demotions, in between.

[Brad K]

The idea of making AI play by the same rules as a human and making it as good as a human is a fantasy. The game needs a help AI switch.

It is possible to help AI without ruining output in historical games. One thing that could be done is to give AI better scouting accuracy than what the human is getting. Another is too have AI not make silly draft or protection list choices for realism. I noticed in my expansion draft tests (full historical minors) teams often have a low minor league player or two on their protection list who never played MLB. Yes, the game occasionally allows one of these guys to succeed but not often.

The effect of the help could vary and actually there could be help human settings to for people who are just starting out (or for those who think going 130-32 is a thrill). It seems the help AI and help human switch went out of use after the DOS era and designers got the idea with bunches of memory they could make AI competitive.

[PSUColonel]

It’s impossible to make the AI play by the same rules as a human…but I don’t think it’s impossible to have the human play by the same rules as the AI.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

It’s impossible to make the AI play by the same rules as a human…but I don’t think it’s impossible to have the human play by the same rules as the AI.

Isn't the second what we have now?

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Isn't the second what we have now?

Not in historical games. We gamers have a tremendous amount of meta-knowledge about the players that the AI does not have. All you can do as a gamer is house-rule your way to some semblence of challenge and immersion.

For example, one of the head canons I frequently use was that my owner infuriated the entire league so badly when he entered the league that every team refuses to trade with him. Because, you know, there is literally no trade setting in the historical game that I can use that doesn't result in me winning the World Series in an unrealistically short amount of time. So I don't trade.

[Brad K]

I'm not certain I consider knowledge of historical players part of rules.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I'm not certain I consider knowledge of historical players part of rules.

ok, I appreciate that perspective. But there are clearly rules that constrain what we can know about players (scouting accuracy) and how they will progress (TCR, potentials, personality & coaching) and historical knowledge of players renders all of those rules irrelevant to you and I.

When the game offers you, at the hardest difficulty, a player who you know will be productive into his late 30s for a slightly better player who you know will fall off a cliff in 1-2 years, that's an unfair advantage for you.

When all of the teams pass on Steve Carlton or Phil Niekro in the amateur draft because they are classified as relievers, or Tommy John drops all of the way to round 3, you can't ignore that as something that maybe you should create rules for.

It's very challenging to develop a set of house rules for the historical game that feels fair to the AI while still giving yourself some flexibility in building a team.

I will never initiate trades at all with the AI or even shop players although I will in some games consider AI trades proposed to me as offered (i.e. no discussion). I always use my scout's recommendation for my first-round draft pick, good or bad. I won't draft relievers until round 3. I also shrink the reserve roster enough to create a reasonable FA pool (this helps the AI, too), but I only allow myself the initial offer to a free agent at his asking price. If he starts a bidding war between teams, I don't participate.

That's challenge mode for me.

edit: another thing I often do is not maintain a reserve roster. iow, my 24-man roster is all I have so when I make a trade that imbalances me positionally (i.e a 3B for an OF), then sometimes I need to rush to the FA pool to sign some replacement-level player to fill the missing spot. This means I have to put a premium on those backup players who can play IF and OF. And a positional player that can serve as an emergency 3rd catcher? Gold.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Isn't the second what we have now?

sort of...the human can still do a lot of things the AI either cannot or just doesn't. A lot of this has to do with roster transactions (sending players up & down, claiming players off of waivers, rule 5 draft, signing unrestricted FA during the season etc...).

Sometimes it's not what the AI DOES, it's what it DOESN't do.


I guess what I was saying is, that you would severely need to restrict what humans can do (make the humans have to act the way the AI does) which would never go over well with most players. This is where people get into "house rules" which I absolutely despise...I would rather have hard coded restrictions (optional of course) rather than use house rules.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

This is where people get into "house rules" which I absolutely despise...I would rather have hard coded restrictions (optional of course) rather than use house rules.

Getting a lot off-topic, so apologies.. but if we talking about things we don't like then one thing that drove me up a wall as a developer were customers who had a pet feature they wanted, and that they just wanted it "as an option". "Can there be just a flag that we can turn this on or off? That way I can have this feature that I think is really cool or important but it doesn't have to mess up anyone else."

Unfortunately, unconstrained use of optional features is one thing that ultimately breaks software and crushes the testing cycle because it vastly increases the amount of testing and debugging required since customers have more and more combinations of optional features they can use. ("hey I was trying both option X and option Z, weird right?, and suddenly this thing that no one anticipated is not working. please fix asap as my game is crashing now")

I'm just saying that there's a counterpoint to that idea and there's a place for house rules so that only your particular game is affected.

[Syd Thrift]

That’s true and even when they all play nice with the core game, you can still wind up with, frankly, what OOTP has become: a toy that is pretty much smothered in options, I’d like to think that I have a good idea of what each and every option on each and every page does but I’ve been playing this for like 20 years and even then I’m sure I’m wrong about something. I’ve gotten to the point to where I’ve started to advocate not adding an option to turn a feature off or else to fold the option into another toggle.

That’s maybe my biggest issue with the game as it stands right now. Just the options alone are very complicated, almost to the point of opacity for a relatively new user (and here “relatively new” can mean a person who’s been playing for a couple years). I love being able to set stuff up exactly how I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s overwhelming for I’m sure the majority of players and frankly I think the sheer number of them have led to people completely misconstruing what some of them mean in historical play, as an example.

[uruguru]

I would get occasional complaints about not adding some feature that obviously seemed interesting and cool, but fortunately I could say that I open-sourced the code so that a lot of the neat stuff could be added by the modding community. Why take away value that they could add to the project? :P

Man, if OOTP were open-sourced I would fix/tweak so many things.

[Pdubya64]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

That’s true and even when they all play nice with the core game, you can still wind up with, frankly, what OOTP has become: a toy that is pretty much smothered in options, I’d like to think that I have a good idea of what each and every option on each and every page does but I’ve been playing this for like 20 years and even then I’m sure I’m wrong about something. I’ve gotten to the point to where I’ve started to advocate not adding an option to turn a feature off or else to fold the option into another toggle.

That’s maybe my biggest issue with the game as it stands right now. Just the options alone are very complicated, almost to the point of opacity for a relatively new user (and here “relatively new” can mean a person who’s been playing for a couple years). I love being able to set stuff up exactly how I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s overwhelming for I’m sure the majority of players and frankly I think the sheer number of them have led to people completely misconstruing what some of them mean in historical play, as an example.

I couldn't have said it any better myself Syd. It's disheartening, but I think we have "optioned" ourselves (kind of a perverse irony there) out of what used to be a fairly reliable Baseball sim with a random twist. I was all for the upgrades over the years, so I have myself to blame. Sucks that it has come to this; I don't think it is any coincidence that tempers and discussions on this board have steadily deteriorated in the last 5-10 years.

[Pelican]

I respect the view(s) that the game has become overly complex, and as a user in my fourth year have struggled with understanding the consequences of this or that change in a setting. Over time, in response to that, I have developed a very particular “template” of settings I invariably apply to each new sim. Only rarely do I tweak something, out of feline curiosity that tends to wreck things! I guess in one sense it could seem sad that I can’t or won’t explore all of the possible variables the game could offer. To me, glass half-full, I appreciate being able to play in a way that is both familiar and predictable (not too much with TCR high) and challenging and realistic. I appreciate that it took decades of work to get to this point. I don’t mind that the game engine is constantly being refined. But I do sometimes hope that “the perfect is the enemy of the good” translates to programming language. And, while these forums are still for me educational, inspiring, motivating, I hope the developers know that you can’t please everybody.

[Sweed]

The funny thing about all of the options OOTP has is "we" asked for them, and still do. Even players that post here about how there are too many. Then if there is a suggestion "we" like we support it as an option and complain if anyone posts "we don't need that". Of course "we" are free to say "we don't need more options" for suggestions we don't support. Then try posting we should remove option "x" and see how that goes. FWIW I am not for removing any options, they're already there. Turn 'em off if you don't want them.

The truth, I think, is we all like "our" options while the "other options" mean there are too many.

Maybe it's because I stay with pretty much vanilla/default settings in my MLB game that has become fictional over the years through attrition, but it hasn't been hard to keep a reasonable, ie believable, baseball world running since v4.

As to new features I stick with "new real life rules" as they come into MLB. I don't try to make leagues, tournaments, promotion/relegation, mix and match options in a "what if" type game etc. etc. Playing my standard MLB setup I don't think much has changed over the years even with all of the new options and complexities.


Years ago there were users suggesting OOTP not try to go the FM route and stick with an MLB only type game while doing the total rewrite of 2006. Imagine how deep the game could be if Markus went this route. Front office aspects that so many complain are too simple could have been fully fleshed out, or two way players would work seamlessly, among many other things. Some of these users also suggested dropping historical too. While I could have happily played such a game I am glad it wasn't the path Markus wanted or ever intended to travel. I like to dabble in historical alongside my main game. I don't ever see myself moving off of MLB or historical but I am happy the option is there for others. The learning curve is the price one pays to have a game like OOTP.

[Pdubya64]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Over time, in response to that, I have developed a very particular “template” of settings I invariably apply to each new sim. Only rarely do I tweak something, out of feline curiosity that tends to wreck things!

Same here Pelican. I have a memorized "checklist" of settings to go through and might tweak the potential vs. past stats a bit. I don't do too much so as to avoid upsetting the baseball sim gods.

[thehef]

If Trading is enabled in a game, then AI Trading Frequency can be set any where from Almost Never to Constantly. I'm speaking from purely a historical-gamer / no financials perspective, but I'd like to see to see something similar apply to signings & releases (AI Roster Churn?), where Almost Never results in teams pretty much standing pat, maybe only releasing a couple of over-the-hill has-beens and other poorly rated players, and signing a few free agents to take their place; whereas Constantly would lead to teams doing complete overhauls, only keeping a few of their stars and their top prospects, etc... and then Average would of course be something in-between...

[darkcloud4579]

I super appreciate and enjoy the customization of OOTP, it's what has made it the best baseball sim on the market and why so many nerds of all stripes have had so much fun getting immersed into worlds. I will say that the game desperately needs a product designer, UX researcher & content strategist to help navigate many of the issues with the complexity of the game's menus. All of us that have been here since the early days understand why the game is like this, but I think for new people the learning curve is EXTREMELY steep. It's for sure a game made by engineers/developers and not with designers who think about human-centered design or build with users in mind. And I get it, but the beauty of OOTP being text-forward is that it's a pretty solvable problem.

All games suffer from too much text, bad menus and design challenges, but even post-acquisition the DIY, small dev team nature of OOTP really separate it from other games on the market.

I know budgets are tight, so it'd be hard to make space for that...but I could connect you to folks pretty easily who'd be into that sort of project, because it's such an interesting problem space and I obviously know a lot about this.