The Team Chemistry Experiment is Not Working

[DotDash]

Originally Posted by LeeD

I think that real-life team chemistry is today's starting pitcher, but it is what it is. The devs wanted to do something for theme teams, and my Phillies theme team just won the World Series. So yay for chemistry even if I'm dubious about the concept.

Hi,

I read you have a basically 'all Live mission reward' team which is easily holding its own in Diamond. Could you do me a favor and rate my team which is stuck in Silver purely on card quality compared to your team?
My team chemistry is non-existent at 14.89%, so I think a comparison like this would go a long way to settle the card ratings vs. chemistry impact discussion. I am never reverting to a mission rewards team, but I'd like to know if this plays a large part in why my team is doing far worse than I think it should.
(By the way, the two tired batters on my roster are at 96%, which means they will be benched next match - I am managing fatigue correctly.)

Thanks!

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by DotDash

Hi,

I read you have a basically 'all Live mission reward' team which is easily holding its own in Diamond. Could you do me a favor and rate my team which is stuck in Silver purely on card quality compared to your team?
My team chemistry is non-existent at 14.89%, so I think a comparison like this would go a long way to settle the card ratings vs. chemistry impact discussion. I am never reverting to a mission rewards team, but I'd like to know if this plays a large part in why my team is doing far worse than I think it should.
(By the way, the two tired batters on my roster are at 96%, which means they will be benched next match - I am managing fatigue correctly.)

Thanks!

The Diamond team I mentioned is still holding its own at 11-8 and is clearly not as good as your team in terms of card quality. Team chemistry with all of those Mission Rewards is 76.39%. I really can't explain the difference in any ways other than Team Chemistry and having gotten to Diamond first, which is helpful, since staying there is easier than getting there.

With your mix of Future Legends and Negro Leagues, chemistry is going to be a problem. To start, I'd suggest completing the NL East Painter mission, which is not very difficult if you hit Batteries and Position Players. I'd also suggest adding more Negro League cards. Putting about eight Negro Leaguers on the roster would dramatically improve chemistry, as they feed off each other and have a special card type multiplier that doesn't apply to other players. You could replace Kelly and DiMaggio with George Carr and Wilson Redus and get Barney Brown for the pitching staff. Torriente would easily outhit Cool Papa in center field. You would take a hit on outfield defense, though, unless you move Pujols to first base. That could give you Carr in left, Cool Papa in center, and Torriente in right.

Your team construction seems a little odd. You have both of the Sporer Twins at second base (Collins and Utley) and only need one of them. Also, three catchers must mean that you're using Ford as a rover. If so, he plays second and third well enough that you could ditch Nicky Lopez in favor of a backup shortstop who will do more than hit singles (or replace him with Negro League Bronze Connie Day, who has a very similar profile and will get you more chemistry points).

Generally, your roster is pretty solid. The trick with chemistry is that as you move similar types off the roster, the remaining similar types lose chemistry points. Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez are worth 400 points apiece on a roster full of Mission Rewards, but they'll drop into the 100's if the rest of the roster isn't Mission Reward cards. If you're definitely not wanting to use the Mission Rewards then drop the remaining ones and replace them with Negro League players of comparable quality.

[DotDash]

Originally Posted by LeeD

The Diamond team I mentioned is still holding its own at 11-8 and is clearly not as good as your team in terms of card quality. Team chemistry with all of those Mission Rewards is 76.39%. I really can't explain the difference in any ways other than Team Chemistry and having gotten to Diamond first, which is helpful, since staying there is easier than getting there.

With your mix of Future Legends and Negro Leagues, chemistry is going to be a problem. To start, I'd suggest completing the NL East Painter mission, which is not very difficult if you hit Batteries and Position Players. I'd also suggest adding more Negro League cards. Putting about eight Negro Leaguers on the roster would dramatically improve chemistry, as they feed off each other and have a special card type multiplier that doesn't apply to other players. You could replace Kelly and DiMaggio with George Carr and Wilson Redus and get Barney Brown for the pitching staff. Torriente would easily outhit Cool Papa in center field. You would take a hit on outfield defense, though, unless you move Pujols to first base. That could give you Carr in left, Cool Papa in center, and Torriente in right.

Your team construction seems a little odd. You have both of the Sporer Twins at second base (Collins and Utley) and only need one of them. Also, three catchers must mean that you're using Ford as a rover. If so, he plays second and third well enough that you could ditch Nicky Lopez in favor of a backup shortstop who will do more than hit singles (or replace him with Negro League Bronze Connie Day, who has a very similar profile and will get you more chemistry points).

Generally, your roster is pretty solid. The trick with chemistry is that as you move similar types off the roster, the remaining similar types lose chemistry points. Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez are worth 400 points apiece on a roster full of Mission Rewards, but they'll drop into the 100's if the rest of the roster isn't Mission Reward cards. If you're definitely not wanting to use the Mission Rewards then drop the remaining ones and replace them with Negro League players of comparable quality.

Thank you. I bolded the part which I think is most relevant for the topic discussed in this thread, but I appreciate the roster 'deep dive' too.
I honestly have to agree with the OP now, that the chemistry system as implemented now is working against team diversity rather than in support of it.
If my team is better, stats-wise than yours, but performing worse in Silver than yours is in Diamond (off to another mediocre start at 11-14; first in ERA but dead last in runs scored), that means chemistry is impacting performance to the tune of two full league levels. Which means I am basically forced to make the changes you suggested (or similar), ignore any good cards I might pull if they don't fit the chemistry meta, etc.

Chemistry should give theme teams a better chance to be competetive, not make non-theme teams uncompetitive altogether. I am putting the game on the back burner until this is addressed.

[webrian]

After one month, my 84 percent chemistry team consisting mostly of weak-hitting KC Royals players plus a few quality pitchers and Historical Perfect thumpers like Albert Belle, Yogi Berra, & John Reilly finished the month of April in Silver League at 14-13.

We lead the league in most pitching stats. We are LAST in the league in almost every offensive category.

We have a paltry +3 run differential: 91 runs scored, 88 runs allowed. My team Batting Avg. is .231. The team OBP is .301. Obviously, this is bad.

Meanwhile, a team with 24.12 percent chemistry leads all teams with a 19-6 record after one month.

So I'm making a few changes:

I sent down a few players who were batting under .100 in the first month. I replaced them with Ty Cobb (97, Baseball-Ref), Cool Papa Bell (90, Neg. Leg.), and Alex Rodriguez (99, HH).

All three new players will be starters. My Team Chemistry rating is now 56.83 — still tops in my league.

[Big_Red_Machine]

I think the idea of chemistry can be good for the game. However, I struggle with how it is implemented. For example, the Cincinnati Reds which I'm a big fan of has been the same baseball team for over a hundred years. However, with how the designations are made in OOTP with players being a CN1, CN2, and more current players CIN, the team chemistry doesn't apply across these. So for example right now King Kelly, John Reilly, and Elly De La Cruz have 0 chemistry boost across them. Which makes 0 sense. Same goes I believe for team's such as the Brooklyn and LA Dodgers. It the objective was to create diversity in Team's the current approach doesn't work. In my opinion, chemistry of players for the same organization should have just as much of a boost as something such as Mission Cards which really don't have much relationship in the game of baseball to each other more than players who played for the same organization. I also think if players were on the same team for the same year the boost needs to be even bigger for those. The way the chemistry boosts works now with the Mission and Combinator Cards having the highest chem boosts says the objective was really to boost those cards that bring in money via Perfect Points. Which is a good objective for a buisness, but if that is the objective then it should just be stated. Lastly, I think it would be much better if OOTP made it simpler to understand the chem boosts. For example, once cards are boosted have it be a boost in there ratings which is shown on the cards and if you remove some players from the team the boost in ratings shown on the cards goes down. This is what other Pay to Play games such as Madden do with chemistry and it's much easier to understand. With that said I enjoy the game and often times I've noticed over the years that the first time new features are offered they often need adjusted in subsequent versions of the game to improve them.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by DotDash

Thank you. I bolded the part which I think is most relevant for the topic discussed in this thread, but I appreciate the roster 'deep dive' too.
I honestly have to agree with the OP now, that the chemistry system as implemented now is working against team diversity rather than in support of it.
If my team is better, stats-wise than yours, but performing worse in Silver than yours is in Diamond (off to another mediocre start at 11-14; first in ERA but dead last in runs scored), that means chemistry is impacting performance to the tune of two full league levels. Which means I am basically forced to make the changes you suggested (or similar), ignore any good cards I might pull if they don't fit the chemistry meta, etc.

Chemistry should give theme teams a better chance to be competetive, not make non-theme teams uncompetitive altogether. I am putting the game on the back burner until this is addressed.

It really isn't as extreme as you're suggesting. It's a feature that allows you to over-perform relative to the competition; but there are plenty of teams with god-awful team chemistry that still win. For instance, the best two teams in my Diamond league have chemistry ratings under 20.

What I've found is that 75% (in the blue) seems to be a magic number. Get team chemistry that high and the team over-performs. This does mean that we're talking Mission Rewards or Negro Leagues because those are the two card sets that produce glowing chemistry numbers, but teams can still win by ignoring it altogether.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by Big_Red_Machine

I think the idea of chemistry can be good for the game. However, I struggle with how it is implemented. For example, the Cincinnati Reds which I'm a big fan of has been the same baseball team for over a hundred years. However, with how the designations are made in OOTP with players being a CN1, CN2, and more current players CIN, the team chemistry doesn't apply across these. So for example right now King Kelly, John Reilly, and Elly De La Cruz have 0 chemistry boost across them. Which makes 0 sense. Same goes I believe for team's such as the Brooklyn and LA Dodgers. It the objective was to create diversity in Team's the current approach doesn't work. In my opinion, chemistry of players for the same organization should have just as much of a boost as something such as Mission Cards which really don't have much relationship in the game of baseball to each other more than players who played for the same organization. I also think if players were on the same team for the same year the boost needs to be even bigger for those. The way the chemistry boosts works now with the Mission and Combinator Cards having the highest chem boosts says the objective was really to boost those cards that bring in money via Perfect Points. Which is a good objective for a buisness, but if that is the objective then it should just be stated. Lastly, I think it would be much better if OOTP made it simpler to understand the chem boosts. For example, once cards are boosted have it be a boost in there ratings which is shown on the cards and if you remove some players from the team the boost in ratings shown on the cards goes down. This is what other Pay to Play games such as Madden do with chemistry and it's much easier to understand. With that said I enjoy the game and often times I've noticed over the years that the first time new features are offered they often need adjusted in subsequent versions of the game to improve them.

Agree with this. It also applies to other teams like the Braves and even the Phillies, who were known as the Quakers and Blue Jays for parts of their history.

[webrian]

Here we go, at PT Gold Level.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ckppp...s17eqnxlr&dl=0

[webrian]

Sorry for the hard link above. I have Canva and Dropbox, but between these expensive photo storing/sharing services, I don't know how to attach images here.