Ways to make game more difficult

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

Good read. Questions:

1) What happens to the weight for ratings when evaluating a player's worth? Should I set it at 0?

2) I have turned all ratings off (still debating what to do with potential...either off or 1-5). I want to keep scouts on though...is there a reason to do so? Will they be able to do anything worthwhile without ratings?

3) Coaches I will leave on with ratings off...this will force me to want to hire guys with experience (who are realistically rated). I will simply go after guys who make a realistic choice and/or guys the AI is going after. Thoughts?

More to come!

I'm not sure I understand your question 1). If you're asking about turning ratings off, and whether Ratings Weight should be changed in the AI Player Evaluation Options, that depends on how you want the AI to make its decisions. Ratings are always used in the game; if you 'turn them off', that just means you're not displaying them; you can't see them, but they are still there, and still working. So, if you want the AI to make decisions with the same info that you have (the stats), you'd turn the Ratings Weight % to 0. If you want the AI to have a kind of advantage- the AI can see ratings that you can't- then leave the Ratings Weight % as is, or turn it up. I leave it at around 30%, and play with invisible ratings.

As for 2): Scouts certainly are useful, even with ratings off, although it might not be obvious why. I've explained in detail in this thread, so I'll just give you the link:

ootpdevelopments.com/board/showthread.php?t=150489

3) I turn my scouts and coaches ratings off as well; I don't think it's realistic to know that one coach is 5 points better than another at teaching pitching or handling rookies. I've actually turned off coaches recently, but I evaluate my scouts based on performance; if my drafts are terrible, I'll fire one of my draft scouts; if I'm not getting good player recommendations from my international scout in Gabon or Vanuatu, he's gone.

[Mike Lowe]

I'll play Devil's Advocate for a min here...

Why should ratings be turned off to be most realistic? If you've been around a MLB club on ANY level it's common knowledge that they have BOOKS of ratings on each player, in every instance of the game. This is what convinced me, a very hard nosed realist, to use 1-100 for ratings with scouts on because I figured that this would be what I would be given by a scout as a real-life GM.

Thanks for the info. Keep the discussion going, I've learned a lot so far. I also know I can do whatever I'd like in this regard and that differences will exist among players...but it's still great to hear others' perspectives.

[Kelric]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

This is what convinced me, a very hard nosed realist, to use 1-100 for ratings with scouts on because I figured that this would be what I would be given by a scout as a real-life GM.

Shouldn't it be 20-80 then?

[Mike Lowe]

Ha right. Wasn't that a newer feature the past few years? I am so used to 1-100 now that it would throw me off too much to switch.

I think I'm going to go with no ratings other than speed/defense. But, I still am thinking about giving myself 'the book' on players in some regard.

All in all, I want to avoid winning every year and want the game to be the biggest challenge possible without limiting myself to primative scouting/knowledge.

[deadringer]

Just throw this out, I set a house rule for myself that says from opening day through the playoffs I'm only allowed to sign free agents or claim waiver players that have a 50 or lower in potential OR overall.

I also try to run my organization as realistically as possible even with players that are a nuance. For example, I'm playing as the Dodgers using Rolen's '06 roster set and I've got Brett Tomko to deal with. He's signed through '07 making about 7mil over those years. He's not very good but he's not completely unusable yet. In real life, no other team would take his overpriced sorry ass and there's no way the owner would let you just hand him his 7mil walking papers so I have to work around him. Honestly I doubt very much in real life that he'd accept a minors assignment because he's so got me by the balls and he knows it.

When it comes to trades, I simply play devil's advocate. I only use the AI at the minimum to line up players that it will accept. After that, I won't make the trade unless I see a clear benefit for both teams and I believe 100% that the AI team will actually use the players involved. Kind of like policing trades as an online commish. Basically I run my solo league like an online league where the AI are all a bunch of spanking newbies.

I play with scouts off, coaches on, and ratings at 20-80 for everything. Even using the high market Dodgers I find it competitive.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

I'll play Devil's Advocate for a min here...

Why should ratings be turned off to be most realistic? If you've been around a MLB club on ANY level it's common knowledge that they have BOOKS of ratings on each player, in every instance of the game. This is what convinced me, a very hard nosed realist, to use 1-100 for ratings with scouts on because I figured that this would be what I would be given by a scout as a real-life GM.

Thanks for the info. Keep the discussion going, I've learned a lot so far. I also know I can do whatever I'd like in this regard and that differences will exist among players...but it's still great to hear others' perspectives.

I agree that 'ratings on' is more realistic, and I think the 2-8 scale is probably the most realistic for component ratings (things like Power, Eye, etc.). On the 20-80 scale, the increments are in 5 points, but scouts normally use 10 point increments, which is what the 2-8 scale does if you multiply by 10. Things are different for the catch-all Overall rating and the Potential rating, which, if set to 20-80, is in one point increments. That seems too high-resolution to me, so I think stars are probably more realistic here, though I haven't thought about it much...

While I don't think 'ratings off' is more realistic, it is certainly more challenging, and that's why I like it. With scouts on, you still have the unreliability of scouts, so while you can rank players in any category you like (despite not being able to see the ratings), the ranking is still only as reliable as the scout. After playing for a while with ratings invisible, I'm not going back- I'm finding it much more fun this way. I still leave 'other ratings' visible- this includes all running and bunting ratings, along with all fielding ratings- but that's only because I'm too impatient to wade through fielding stats or to watch all of my team's games. I wish there was a way to see player personality ratings while turning everything else off, but there isn't; they're considered 'Player Actual Ratings' and not 'Other Ratings'.

[Mike Lowe]

This is great info IL, thanks for the help. Here's what I'm thinking of doing now:

Scouts and coaches on (used in a realistic manner however...no AI abuse)
Actual ratings: 2-8
Potential ratings: OFF*
Other player ratings: 2-8
No over max
Overall stars*

*Subject to change

I want someway to determine the potential of a player, allbeit very broad. As I have it now it's simply on a star basis. The other option would be to turn stars off and use 2-8 for potential.

What do you think about these? I really want some sort of rating turned on for actual since I want to see personalities etc.

[deadringer]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

This is great info IL, thanks for the help. Here's what I'm thinking of doing now:

Scouts and coaches on (used in a realistic manner however...no AI abuse)
Actual ratings: 2-8
Potential ratings: OFF*
Other player ratings: 2-8
No over max
Overall stars*

*Subject to change

I want someway to determine the potential of a player, allbeit very broad. As I have it now it's simply on a star basis. The other option would be to turn stars off and use 2-8 for potential.

What do you think about these? I really want some sort of rating turned on for actual since I want to see personalities etc.

The only catch there is for drafts.

One other way I try to equalize the playing field is to have the AI do as much as I can stomach for my own team. I play out every game and I let the AI do everything but make substitutions. That way if the AI is gonna screw up for itself it will screw up for me. I also let the AI run my minor league system, same reason. I also am debating on letting the AI do my drafts for me.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by deadringer

The only catch there is for drafts.

Actually, drafts are ok. You can rank guys by Potential correctly, even if you're not displaying Potential ratings (you won't see the actual ratings, but you can easily find out which guy your scout thinks has the best Power Potential, or overall Potential).

[Mike Lowe]

Scouts and coaches on (used in a realistic manner however...no AI abuse)
Actual ratings: 2-8
Potential ratings: 2-8
Other player ratings: 2-8
No over max
Overall stars*

What about stars? I'm still on the fence about using stars or nothing.

[Veracity]

Originally Posted by Mike Lowe

I'll play Devil's Advocate for a min here...

Why should ratings be turned off to be most realistic? If you've been around a MLB club on ANY level it's common knowledge that they have BOOKS of ratings on each player, in every instance of the game. This is what convinced me, a very hard nosed realist, to use 1-100 for ratings with scouts on because I figured that this would be what I would be given by a scout as a real-life GM. ...

I think the only way to use the 1-100 scale and keep the game challenging is to force yourself to hire merely average scouts.

[Mike Lowe]

Or make it much more difficult to sign great scouts in a solo career.

[rdomico]

Originally Posted by Andy

I take this a little further. All I do is manage the team the entire year, playing out each game. The computer GM makes all the roster moves and I just deal with whatever he does.

I've been thinking of doing something like this. Do you leave the team as AI controlled and just play out the games or are you the hired GM and you just set all your Team Controls to AI? What about scouts and coaches? Do you just turn them off?