Fundamental flaws... your chance to vent!

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Ooh, nice one.

Actually it's a valid and real question. Markus really does try to make OOTP mirror real life. I give him much credit for this. He works andd studies and learns. But his game is designed backward--meaning he essentially creates results first and then works backward to the causes. This philosophy permeates almost every area of the artificial environment, and is (in my opinion only) the reason so many unresolvable problems exist in the game today.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

Ooh, nice one.

Indeed it was.

But one may recall there have been numerous discussions 'round here regarding the lack of certain real-world transaction rules in the game. So the debate of just how much OOTP should reflect the real world goes beyond the player statistics and development...

[Eugene Church]

Please make it possible to copy a team's game strategy to ALL of the other teams in your league.

I play in the Commissioner Mode and control all league teams and this would be a great help to me.

Currently you can only copy the game strategy time and game score situations to just the team you are working on.

Sure would save a lot of time if you could globally copy a team's game strategy to all of the other teams in the league.

[PSUColonel]

The AI is not aggressive with waiver wire or free agent transactions

[RchW]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

The AI is not aggressive with waiver wire or free agent transactions

I'll expand on this.

I claim a serviceable player from waivers but as RL GM's do I decided to trade for him to preclude other teams from getting first dibs. The team asks for any one of my four best players, no other offer was acceptable. Instead I waited and the player was mine for nothing.

This highlights two fundamental flaws:

1. The trade AI should take a warm body, anything that's offered since the decision has already been made to put the player on waivers.
2. No other team made a claim, my team is the best in the league. This player was useful at league minimum to any of the lower half of MLB.

[Isura]

Need to fix the financial system.

Cash gets too high over the years, causing skyrocketing salaries. The game AI should use the salary scale more strictly, to keep salaries within an acceptable range. Teams often sit on piles of cash, causing FA to ask for ridiculous salaries. Players should use the salary scale plus market bidding to determine salary, not the amount of cash floating around. In real life teams can have tons of cash, but the owner would simply pocket the cash instead of overpaying.

[RchW]

Minor league AI cannot properly replace injured players.
Injured players should not be in the starting lineup.


Triple A team has two injured catchers. This presents several fundamental flaws.

1. No catcher called up from AA. This must be the easiest thing in the world to code.
2. The AI starts one injured catcher, bats him first, disrupting the set batting order and pinch hits for him in the top of the first inning.
3. A star 3B prospect plays catcher.

[Cardinal Rule]

I don't think this one has made it onto this thread, if it has and I missed it I apologize:

AI Waives Players in New League for Human GM

Set up a new league, install a human GM in the league creation process, and I always see that the AI has put players on waivers and made roster moves on January 1st. If I set up a new league and take over a team right away, I'd like to not have try to undo something the AI did.

[LCS213]

I just noticed this today. Looking at a player card at a player's career stats, there is a line for career totals and "career highs".
I think Career Highs should be renamed career bests and that the stat that's shown should have the proper context. In a lot of areas that's how it is, but in others it's wrong. Allow me to explain.

When looking at a pitcher's "career highs", it's great to see most wins, strikeouts, etc. It even shows the lowest ERA. But I don't want to see most hits against, I'd want to see the lowest hits against. Least runs allowed. Least HR's.

Now, I understand that this can get screwy with pitchers who played partial seasons, but you should use some criteria to determine whether it's a valid stat to count as career best.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by RchW

No catcher called up from AA. This must be the easiest thing in the world to code.

Probably not, since such a call up would cause a cascade of call ups through all the leagues below AAA. If you call up a player from AA, that leaves the AA club a player short, so now it has to call someone up from A, which then leaves that club a player short, and so on. Though it's probably a little easier on the lowest level leagues since their active limits are fairly high (30 or 35 players as compared to 24 or 25 at the higher levels).

That said, it's still something that needs to be addressed. And the minors need their own disabled list (personally, I'd still rather see that be accomplished by making all leagues truly unique leagues with their own rules and settings rather than by shoehorning in a minor league DL kludge into the current system).

[Carplos]

(personally, I'd still rather see that be accomplished by making all leagues truly unique leagues with their own rules and settings rather than by shoehorning in a minor league DL kludge into the current system).

Really? Never heard you express that before!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Really? Never heard you express that before!

If I keep repeating it, it's because I consider it a rather important improvement the game should incorporate. So I bang the drum for it!

[Carplos]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If I keep repeating it, it's because I consider it a rather important improvement the game should incorporate. So I bang the drum for it!

Oh, it's a great idea and I'm glad you do. Just givin' ya a bad time.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Oh, it's a great idea and I'm glad you do. Just givin' ya a bad time.

That's as it should be!

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Probably not, since such a call up would cause a cascade of call ups through all the leagues below AAA. If you call up a player from AA, that leaves the AA club a player short, so now it has to call someone up from A, which then leaves that club a player short, and so on. Though it's probably a little easier on the lowest level leagues since their active limits are fairly high (30 or 35 players as compared to 24 or 25 at the higher levels).

That said, it's still something that needs to be addressed. And the minors need their own disabled list (personally, I'd still rather see that be accomplished by making all leagues truly unique leagues with their own rules and settings rather than by shoehorning in a minor league DL kludge into the current system).

I wasn't clear. The AI should be able to see that it doesn't have any catchers to play. There are six catchers in the system to choose from. Maybe I'm wrong but that should be easy to code. BTW I keep my AAA and AA rosters at 30 just to mitigate the mess that injuries cause in the minor leagues. Even that didn't work. That qualifies as a fundamental flaw IMO.

For the rest I agree with you.

[deadringer]

Under the heading of not a game flaw but a design decision that drives me crazy, the way players overall and potentials are rated. I hate like hell that a player in rookie ball that doesn't have the skills to ever hit double is rated as a 20 overall (20-80 scale) while my usable but not good role / utility / bench player is also rated a 20. I get that the talent in an entire league isn't distributed like a bell curve by why are players that could never be in the big leagues ranked the same as guys who can serve a role?

[professor ape]

I haven't done an extensive study but one issue that I have definitely seen is the number of games played at various positions when playing in a fictional league with pretty much the default settings. The most obvious issue is that I routinely see that there are more catchers in a league playing more than 140 games in the season than for other positions. IRL catchers split more than any other position due to the wear and tear. On top of that I see very few players who are clear starters at a position espoecially at 2B, 3B and SS. These seem to be treated as interchangable by the AI with very few 100+ game players at each position.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by professor ape

I haven't done an extensive study but one issue that I have definitely seen is the number of games played at various positions when playing in a fictional league with pretty much the default settings. The most obvious issue is that I routinely see that there are more catchers in a league playing more than 140 games in the season than for other positions. IRL catchers split more than any other position due to the wear and tear. On top of that I see very few players who are clear starters at a position espoecially at 2B, 3B and SS. These seem to be treated as interchangable by the AI with very few 100+ game players at each position.

I agree on the first part, too many catchers play too many games. I suspect that lack of injuries is a possible reason for the high game totals.

I don't see the other problem at the infield positions. See below for my solo league games started at position vs 2008 MLB. Very good agreement IMO.

I wonder what effect AI eval has on GS at a position. If heavily based on either rating or stats it may affect the lineup choice.

2B
Real OOTP
157 158
155 157
151 151
151 147
144 142
140 140
139 135
134 132

SS
Real OOTP
161 158
158 157
157 149
151 148
150 148
150 147
149 141
147 140
145 138
144 137

3B
Real OOTP
159 159
154 157
149 157
147 156
145 154
141 147
137 144
133 140
131 138
124 137

[Balker]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Probably not, since such a call up would cause a cascade of call ups through all the leagues below AAA. If you call up a player from AA, that leaves the AA club a player short, so now it has to call someone up from A, which then leaves that club a player short, and so on. Though it's probably a little easier on the lowest level leagues since their active limits are fairly high (30 or 35 players as compared to 24 or 25 at the higher levels).

That said, it's still something that needs to be addressed. And the minors need their own disabled list (personally, I'd still rather see that be accomplished by making all leagues truly unique leagues with their own rules and settings rather than by shoehorning in a minor league DL kludge into the current system).

If your league is set up correctly, then you have dozens of free agents at each position willing to accept minor league contracts at all times. The AI could simply a sign a warm body and assign him to the required level. That has to be easy to code.

[Balker]

Originally Posted by professor ape

I haven't done an extensive study but one issue that I have definitely seen is the number of games played at various positions when playing in a fictional league with pretty much the default settings. The most obvious issue is that I routinely see that there are more catchers in a league playing more than 140 games in the season than for other positions. IRL catchers split more than any other position due to the wear and tear. On top of that I see very few players who are clear starters at a position espoecially at 2B, 3B and SS. These seem to be treated as interchangable by the AI with very few 100+ game players at each position.

Catchers do fatigue faster than other position players in OOTP. I'd need to see systematic evidence before accepting your statement.