BUG (2.0.2.50) - Trade AI - Can easily rip off computer teams (Was closed - but still not fixed)

[dim13]

Instead of the AI assigning a negative value to a player, why not assign him a zero value or a very small positive value ?

This way the human team won't be gaining an unfair advantage by adding a player to the trade that the AI wants to get rid of to clear a roster spot.

[Curtis]

I would think that all players should have a positive value, no matter how small.

If any players had a zero value, and you could figure out which ones they were, then you could add nine of them to any even one-for-one deal. In fact, there have been claims that you can do exactly this, which would seem to sound a warning bell.

[injury log]

I do think some players should have negative value- a team should need to package good prospects in order to move terrible players with massive contracts, for example. Now, player value could always be zero or positive, and 'trade value' could be calculated as player value minus contract value, scaled somehow, of course. Then players with minor league contracts would never have negative value.

[dim13]

Originally Posted by Curtis

If any players had a zero value, and you could figure out which ones they were, then you could add nine of them to any even one-for-one deal. In fact, there have been claims that you can do exactly this, which would seem to sound a warning bell.

I have come across many trades where I can get a 10 for 1 player deals. This shouldn't be so.

Originally Posted by injury log

I do think some players should have negative value- a team should need to package good prospects in order to move terrible players with massive contracts, for example. Now, player value could always be zero or positive, and 'trade value' could be calculated as player value minus contract value, scaled somehow, of course. Then players with minor league contracts would never have negative value.

If you have finances/salaries turned ON - I can see there being occassions of having a negative or zero value for teams that want to dump players with overbloated contracts.

If you have finances/salaries furned OFF (as in my posted examples)(and in my case), negative values should never happen.

[Mets Man]

Here's my stance:

1) Every minor league player with a minor league contract should be given a POSITIVE value (even if its ever so slight).

2) dim13 mentioned before that some crappy "roster filler" minor leaguers with minor league contracts should be given a ZERO value if it helps to make a trade work with the human GM. Although I understand this concept, I still say that every minor leaguer player with a minor league contract should still have some POSITIVE value, because you shouldn't simply be able to just pluck away any of these players from the CPU team's pool.

As a human GM, you wouldn't just let another GM take away players from your team's roster for nothing, especially if you knew that they had some value to the other GM. You would instinctively use that knowledge to see what you could get for him. Grant it, you wouldn't ask for much, since you care very little for these players, but nevertheless, it should NEVER be open season in your roster. No GM should be able to just pick and choose amongst players in anybody's roster for nothing.

The argument that these "roster filler players" could easily be replaced by other minor leaguers in the free agent pool so they shouldn't hold any value makes sense, but it shouldn't be a reason for the CPU to assign a ZERO value to these players if they are on their roster because why would YOU be interested in them in the first place? If these type of players could be acquired in the free agent pool, then you shouldn't bother trying to acquire them through a trade (just get them through the free agent pool then and keep your hands off these players in the CPU's roster). It shouldn't be that easy to simply take away players from the CPU's roster for nothing. Every player acquired in a trade should hold some value (positive or negative, NO zeros). For gameplay reasons, I say just have these roster filler minor league players have a very small POSITIVE value. I understand that the true value of these players is probably closer to ZERO since you could just acquire these types through the free agent pool for free, but YOU as a human GM lose nothing by not getting fair value for these players, since you can simply acquire the same/similar types of players through the free agent pool. So just keep your hands off these players on the CPU's roster, and just go to the free agent pool to acquire these "roster filler" players. (Look at this POSITIVE value for these players for simply having membership on a team's roster)

Let's be honest, do you really care enough about these players to not allow a trade to go through without having them added to the trade? I hardly believe that they hold enough value to make or break a deal. By saying they do, means that they are not roster fillers and that they should hold a POSITIVE value anyways.

You are either saying that:

a) they are so crappy that they should hold no value, thus they should not have NO factor in your judgement of the trade (the CPU should not need to throw them in a trade to make it work for you - since you claim they don't have any real value), therefore they should be assigned a small POSITIVE value just so you can't just acquire them for nothing

OR

b) you are saying that they are not crappy enough and thus should hold a POSITIVE value.

In either case, these players should be assigned a POSITIVE VALUE.

So, I still stand by my affirmation, that every minor league player with a minor league contract should be assigned some POSITIVE value.

3) The only players that should warrant a NEGATIVE VALUE are those players with a major league contract that exceeds their performance and/or ability. So any player that is not meeting the demands of their contract (overpaid) should be assigned this NEGATIVE value. This rule is harder to implement from a programmer's perspective I'd imagine. It involves many complexities. You have to take into account the length of the remaining contract, the amount being paid in that span, the level of performance this year, the previous year, the optimism of improvement in performance, their ratings (current and potential) etc etc.

There are just so many factors that go into whether a player's performance is worth their current contract. It isn't as simple as looking at the player's stats this year and seeing how much money they make this year. You have to take into account their ratings, their potential ratings, their stats this year, their previous stats (because they may be able to improve) etc etc. I'd say you have to really tread carefully when assigning a NEGATIVE value to any player. Even on the surface, somebody may appear to be overpaid, however most teams usually have hope that a player can turns things around. Given all those factors, there shouldn't be alot of players with NEGATIVE value running around the league. Superstars generally hold some value even if they are somewhat overpaid at times. Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez may be a good example of that. Yes, they have great stats, yes they perform extremely well, however it can easily be argued that these players probably still don't meet the massive value of their contract. Nevertheless, these players should still probably be assigned a POSITIVE value because of their huge contributions alone, their team's performance depends on it (however, their POSITIVE value should be less than another similar player with a far smaller contract).

The point is, assigning a NEGATIVE value to a player should be be done very carefully.

[Mets Man]

Originally Posted by Mets Man

2) dim13 mentioned before that some crappy "roster filler" minor leaguers with minor league contracts should be given a ZERO value if it helps to make a trade work with the human GM. Although I understand this concept, I still say that every minor leaguer player with a minor league contract should still have some POSITIVE value, because you shouldn't simply be able to just pluck away any of these players from the CPU team's pool.

As a human GM, you wouldn't just let another GM take away players from your team's roster for nothing, especially if you knew that they had some value to the other GM. You would instinctively use that knowledge to see what you could get for him. Grant it, you wouldn't ask for much, since you care very little for these players, but nevertheless, it should NEVER be open season in your roster. No GM should be able to just pick and choose amongst players in anybody's roster for nothing.

The argument that these "roster filler players" could easily be replaced by other minor leaguers in the free agent pool so they shouldn't hold any value makes sense, but it shouldn't be a reason for the CPU to assign a ZERO value to these players if they are on their roster because why would YOU be interested in them in the first place? If these type of players could be acquired in the free agent pool, then you shouldn't bother trying to acquire them through a trade (just get them through the free agent pool then and keep your hands off these players in the CPU's roster). It shouldn't be that easy to simply take away players from the CPU's roster for nothing. Every player acquired in a trade should hold some value (positive or negative, NO zeros). For gameplay reasons, I say just have these roster filler minor league players have a very small POSITIVE value. I understand that the true value of these players is probably closer to ZERO since you could just acquire these types through the free agent pool for free, but YOU as a human GM lose nothing by not getting fair value for these players, since you can simply acquire the same/similar types of players through the free agent pool. So just keep your hands off these players on the CPU's roster, and just go to the free agent pool to acquire these "roster filler" players. (Look at this POSITIVE value for these players for simply having membership on a team's roster)

Let's be honest, do you really care enough about these players to not allow a trade to go through without having them added to the trade? I hardly believe that they hold enough value to make or break a deal. By saying they do, means that they are not roster fillers and that they should hold a POSITIVE value anyways.

You are either saying that:

a) they are so crappy that they should hold no value, thus they should not have NO factor in your judgement of the trade (the CPU should not need to throw them in a trade to make it work for you - since you claim they don't have any real value), therefore they should be assigned a small POSITIVE value just so you can't just acquire them for nothing

OR

b) you are saying that they are not crappy enough and thus should hold a POSITIVE value.

In either case, these players should be assigned a POSITIVE VALUE.

So, I still stand by my affirmation, that every minor league player with a minor league contract should be assigned some POSITIVE value.


The point is, assigning a NEGATIVE value to a player should be be done very carefully.

One special note for #2 on my stance:
In the reverse situation (the human GM wants to add these roster filler minor leaguers to a trade to try to get value for them), the human GM's roster filler minor leaguers should probably have a ZERO value to the CPU GM. In other words, you shouldn't be able to acquire any extra leverage or talent for these scrubs.

When building a CPU AI, you have to take into account that the CPU cannot think like we do. We're ridiculous enough to include these scrubs in a trade to fiddle around etc etc. The CPU AI does not have this kind of flexibility.

So basically, the only time a player should have a ZERO value is when you add them to your offer side of the trade (you're giving them away to the CPU).

Look at it like this:

Whoever the ones asking for trade, should be at small disadvantage. YOU are the one suggestion adding these roster filler minor leaguers in the first place, NOT the CPU GM.

1) In the first scenario, you wanted to add them to the deal so you could acquire them, thus they should hold some value (POSITIVE)

2) In the second scenario, you wanted to offer them to the deal so you could get rid of them, thus in someway the mere fact you wanted to get rid of them should hold some value.

In both cases, the advantage/leverage should go to the CPU.

The CPU would never ask for these scrub players, so you don't have to worry about it on the flip side.

Wow, I just realized there really are a lot of things to look at from the programmer's perspective to avoid exploits.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Mets Man

One special note for #2 on my stance:
In the reverse situation (the human GM wants to add these roster filler minor leaguers to a trade to try to get value for them), the human GM's roster filler minor leaguers should probably have a ZERO value to the CPU GM. In other words, you shouldn't be able to acquire any extra leverage or talent for these scrubs.

A very good point, and I agree that this kind of asymmetry needs to be present in any trading system that hopes to simulate intelligence. There is something similar present in OOTP already; even with trading set to 'neutral', I just offered a team $400,000 in exchange for $1, and the deal was not accepted. With trading set to 'hard', I offered a team a 1st round pick in exchange for a 2nd rounder, and again, not accepted. So it seems that in OOTP, the other team needs to think that what you're offering *exceeds* the value of what they're giving up by a certain amount- the amount doubtless determined by the trading difficulty setting. If this amount (the gap in value between what the AI team is receiving and surrendering that the AI team requires to accept a deal) is high enough, it does prevent any random low-value scrub from making a difference in a trade. Still, I don't know if the trade AI performs an asymmetrical evaluation of players in a deal, as you suggest (an AI team should assign more value to the weak players they already have in their organization than they do to the ones in another organization), and if it doesn't, it should. I'd argue, actually, that there's no reason only to apply the thinking to low-value players; real teams value their own prospects more highly than they do those on other teams, for example.