AI cannot counter milb contracts with signing bonuses

uruguru · 07-11-2023, 11:46 AM

I am currently running a historical save that starts with 8 expansion teams that have to use free agency to fill their rosters.

Since I am playing one of the expansion teams, I decided to include signing bonuses (some small, some large) with all of my milb contract offers just to avoid the neverending issues of "You offered me a minor-league contract. What I want is a minor-league contract". I just wanted to filter out some of the constant renegotiation that I expected with so many outstanding contract offers.

This bug report is not about that issue.

It's instead about how the AIs for the other MLB teams were completely unable to deal with these offers. Even for the best prospects, they would only offer milb contracts with no bonuses, so I was unexpectedly able to run the table and sign every reasonable prospect available.

At the link is the summary of the gameplay so far. The actual sigining of all of the prospects starts around post #10, although the formula I used for determining signing bonuses is on post #5.

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=348229

This is a very exploitable problem with the AI since I suspect that I could have used much smaller bonuses to achieve the same outcome (my calculated bonuses were more realistic and costly). As it stands now, I suddenly have the best farm system in the game just a few weeks into the save.

The solution seems to be for the AI to be able to outbid me for top prospects with larger signing bonuses.

The only teams that seemed to contend for these prospects were independent teams (although they would still only offer straight milb contracts), but the players would try to use those offers from independent teams to try and bluff up my signing bonus. I think that was a good AI, but it only happened on less than <10% of the players I sent offers to.

Regardless, when I ignored their requests those players would inevitably want to Resume Negotiations and accept my original signing bonus.

Very exploitable.

uruguru · 07-11-2023, 12:13 PM

just for the record, I understand how complicated AI work is. So what I would like to do is suggest what would seem to be the most realistic solution.

1. All meaningful prospects (ie. 2.5-star potential or higher) who are clearly not ready for the majors (i.e. 2-star overall or lower) should expect some sort of signing bonus. Just offering a milb contract with no bonus should be rejected outright.

2. The size of this bonus should be based on both their overall rating (i.e. how close they are to the majors) and their potential rating. So a 2.0/4.5 prospect should expect a larger bonus than a 1.0/4.5 because he's more developed already. You can look at post #5 in my save thread for an example of a calculation that I felt was reasonable.

3. If a player is getting offered this bonus by multiple teams, then obviously he should try to pit the bidders against themselves in order to maximize that bonus. Based on my experience, I suspect code for that is already in place.

4. If the prospect does not receive any offers, then his expected bonus should begin declining.. perhaps when pre-season starts. By opening day, he should be ready to sign for no bonus if that's what it takes.

If I had received competing offers for some of these prospects, there's no way I could have signed them all.

07-11-2023, 12:13 PM	#2
uruguru All Star Starter Join Date: May 2022 Posts: 1,253	just for the record, I understand how complicated AI work is. So what I would like to do is suggest what would seem to be the most realistic solution. 1. All meaningful prospects (ie. 2.5-star potential or higher) who are clearly not ready for the majors (i.e. 2-star overall or lower) should expect some sort of signing bonus. Just offering a milb contract with no bonus should be rejected outright. 2. The size of this bonus should be based on both their overall rating (i.e. how close they are to the majors) and their potential rating. So a 2.0/4.5 prospect should expect a larger bonus than a 1.0/4.5 because he's more developed already. You can look at post #5 in my save thread for an example of a calculation that I felt was reasonable. 3. If a player is getting offered this bonus by multiple teams, then obviously he should try to pit the bidders against themselves in order to maximize that bonus. Based on my experience, I suspect code for that is already in place. 4. If the prospect does not receive any offers, then his expected bonus should begin declining.. perhaps when pre-season starts. By opening day, he should be ready to sign for no bonus if that's what it takes. If I had received competing offers for some of these prospects, there's no way I could have signed them all. Last edited by uruguru; 07-11-2023 at 12:17 PM.

07-11-2023, 11:46 AM	#1
uruguru All Star Starter Join Date: May 2022 Posts: 1,253	AI cannot counter milb contracts with signing bonuses I am currently running a historical save that starts with 8 expansion teams that have to use free agency to fill their rosters. Since I am playing one of the expansion teams, I decided to include signing bonuses (some small, some large) with all of my milb contract offers just to avoid the neverending issues of "You offered me a minor-league contract. What I want is a minor-league contract". I just wanted to filter out some of the constant renegotiation that I expected with so many outstanding contract offers. This bug report is not about that issue. It's instead about how the AIs for the other MLB teams were completely unable to deal with these offers. Even for the best prospects, they would only offer milb contracts with no bonuses, so I was unexpectedly able to run the table and sign every reasonable prospect available. At the link is the summary of the gameplay so far. The actual sigining of all of the prospects starts around post #10, although the formula I used for determining signing bonuses is on post #5. https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=348229 This is a very exploitable problem with the AI since I suspect that I could have used much smaller bonuses to achieve the same outcome (my calculated bonuses were more realistic and costly). As it stands now, I suddenly have the best farm system in the game just a few weeks into the save. The solution seems to be for the AI to be able to outbid me for top prospects with larger signing bonuses. The only teams that seemed to contend for these prospects were independent teams (although they would still only offer straight milb contracts), but the players would try to use those offers from independent teams to try and bluff up my signing bonus. I think that was a good AI, but it only happened on less than <10% of the players I sent offers to. Regardless, when I ignored their requests those players would inevitably want to Resume Negotiations and accept my original signing bonus. Very exploitable. Last edited by uruguru; 07-11-2023 at 12:20 PM.