Suggestions: Game Engine / Player Modeling and Development

[JerryArr]

Suggestion:
Have an option for each player in historical leagues to either A) Develop this player according to the database or B) Develop this player 'naturally', or even allow the game to 'naturally' develop a player after there is no more, or even partial season, data for that player.

Reason:
There are players with missed seasons due to real life injuries who would go down dramatically for no reason in the game if they aren't injured in the game, and this could probably help out those historical simmers.

Importance:
Medium High

[eMLBCommish]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

SuggestionCatchers should have a handle pitchers rating.


ReasonThere is a heated debate on what, if any, ability a catcher has on handling a pitching staff. Baseball Prospectus Baseball Between the Numbers did a good job showing that there is no such skill that can be statistically observed. Yet, it is accepted as part of the common wisdom of baseball men that such a thing exists. To square these two observed facts, use the handle pitcher rating of a catcher to modify the morale levels of the pitching staff. A catcher with a good rating will not irritate the pitchers, but one with a low rating will annoy and displease the staff to the point of distraction or even revolt.


Priority
low

I TT'd this last season and Markus shot it down.

Being in the school that believes Jason Varitek is more valuable than his offensive #s because of how he calls a game and studies tape and information on his opponents, I believe pitchers should get modified bonuses or negatives based upon a Catcher's ability to call a game.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by eMLBCommish

I TT'd this last season and Markus shot it down.

Being in the school that believes Jason Varitek is more valuable than his offensive #s because of how he calls a game and studies tape and information on his opponents, I believe pitchers should get modified bonuses or negatives based upon a Catcher's ability to call a game.

If at first you don't succeed...

[beorn]

Suggestion: Tweak position experience ratings


Reason: It seems unrealistically difficult to develop a utility player. Take a guy who has decent range, error avoidance, and arm in both the inf and of and try to play him at many positions, so that when/if he reaches the majors he will have at least so-so ability at lots of positions. It is practically impossible, because by the time one position gets a bit established, a couple others have fallen to the minimum or disappeared.

I suspect the key is this -- playing cf might not add to lf and rf experience, but a player should not lose much if anything from his knowledge of lf and rf. Same thing in the infield, if you are playing ss, I doubt a player is losing much of his prior knowledge of playing 2b or even 3b.

In any case, I know that there have always been utility players who performed adequately at many positions, and it is very difficult to develop such players in this game.


Priority: Medium

[BravesSince66]

Suggestion:Individual player development and aging modifiers or ratings.


Reason: Global modifiers are not specific enough especially with aging. Historically this allows for better modeling of players like Clements and Niekro.


Priority: Medium for development; HIGH for aging.

Thanks.

[Vholes]

Suggestion: Allow the user to define the ages at which players peak, in addition to the speed of the development/decline phases.

Reason: Current system allows users to define rates of development/decline only. This improvement would allow for more options in the shape of a development curve (e.g., have players peak early but decline at a slow rate afterwards, or have a gradual buildup to a peak in the early 30s and a quick decline afterwards). This would be a huge improvement for historical leagues, since aging patterns have changed over time. For example, most great early pitchers (Al Spalding, Amos Rusie, Tommy Bond) emerged as stars almost instantly, peaked in their early 20s and were washed up by their mid-20s; in a modern game, pitchers peak far later and more gradually.

Priority: Medium

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by BravesSince66

Suggestion:Individual player development and aging modifiers or ratings.


Reason: Global modifiers are not specific enough especially with aging. Historically this allows for better modeling of players like Clements and Niekro.


Priority: Medium for development; HIGH for aging.

Thanks.

I very much agree with this. You should get some guys like the baseball equivilant of Morten Anderson.

[voxpoptart]

Suggestion
Instead of arriving at random times, Potential boosts should occur as a player's Actual ratings approaches his Potential closely. Also, Potential reductions should happen less frequently once a player's Actual approaches his Potential.

Reasons
1. More accurate modeling. It would make it much easier for the game to duplicate the real life principle that when a player is succeeding in a league that's older than he is, he is likelier to become a star -- and the principle that young, successful players are likelier to improve than regress.

2. Psychological / storytelling appeal. Right now, I have a Rookie league pitcher named Devin Brower whose Potential went from 9-11-8 to 12-17-12 -- even though he's still not good enough to promote to Short Season A. I appreciate the boost, but what sense does that make? And I have a guy named Sos Magorian who's 20 and tearing up Class A, but there's no reason to promote him because he's already fulfilled his Potential and is more likely to regress than ever advance. What sense does that make? I'd rather know that a talent boost might be on the way at any moment, and treat him as I would a real player in his position.

Importance
Very high.

[Kaitiaki]

Suggestion

Add a "Favoured Prospect" designation for players in your minor league system (this ties in with the suggestions by jmolony3 & injury log in the 5th and 6th posts in this thread). This designation would instruct your AI managers to give such players priority in terms of playing time and positional assignment when constructing the depth charts and managing the games.

(Additional detail suggested by injury log, below: if minor league promotions and demotions are left to AI control, 'favored prospects' should be given an optimal development path. So even if a young LF is the best LF in my team's minor league system, if he isn't ready for AAA, the game shouldn't put him in AAA if I've labeled him as a 'favored prospect'. And if a favored shortstop prospect is ready for AAA, but there's a minor league vet who has slightly better Overall ratings, the game should bus the veteran to AA and install the SS as the AAA starter.)

Reason

OOTP's AI managers will often disagree with a human player about which players on a minor league team should get the most playing time. Sometimes I'll want to keep a veteran fresh in AAA; other times I'll want the low-rated-but-high-ceilinged young prospect to get the work to improve his skills. Currently, I have to micromanage my lineups & staff in the minors to achieve this. Adding a way to tell the AI "playing this guy is more important than playing that guy" would allow me to take a more hands-off approach to minor league team roster management.

Priority

Medium.

- Kai

[injury log]

Just to add to Kai's suggestion above, which I support: if minor league promotions and demotions are left to AI control, 'favored prospects' should be given an optimal development path. So even if a young LF is the best LF in my team's minor league system, if he isn't ready for AAA, the game shouldn't put him in AAA if I've labeled him as a 'favored prospect'. And if a favored shortstop prospect is ready for AAA, but there's a minor league vet who has slightly better Overall ratings, the game should bus the veteran to AA and install the SS as the AAA starter.

[Killebrew]

Suggestion Add a 'volatility' rating for players, increase the default starting talents of pre-draft rookies, then use the 'volatility' rating as a way for users to gauge how accurate the talent ratings might be. A high volatility rating means the players chances of fulfilling that talent promise is much riskier. Then again, if the players talents are low and the volatility rating is high there is a chance for a true rookie draft steal. First round picks would generally be players with low volatility ratings combined with high talents, but those risky high talent/high volatility players would become more tempting as the draft proceeds, and just because the chances of the player becoming great is reduced does not mean he can't become great. Of course, even with higher starting talents for rookies, the numbers of players that become good or great should be similar to the odds in real life, so during the players first 1-5 seasons you would expect many talent drops. In fact, you might expect a 'reality check' talent drop immediately after the player is drafted.

Reason In real life nearly every drafted rookie is a prospect that the team and it's fans are expecting big things from. In OOTP only a tiny fraction of the drafted rookies look like true prospects when drafted, most look like players that should not even be drafted in real life, and the lower half of the draft lists look like players that would not be good enough to play in your local mixed, aged 65+ softball team. Look at all the websites and books/mags devoted to baseball prospects - some real life fans even follow a teams prospects more than the MLB team. The reason they do it is simple, that hope for tomorrow, regardless of how unlikely that hope might be, is gosh darn-it, fun. I think changing the way we look at prospects in OOTP would make this process more fun as well, and definitely increase the immersion factor for users. The volatility rating will increase the user strategy involved in drafting and dealing with young players and though randomness would still have a large impact, this rating would at least make some of the inevitable drops in perceived talent less frustrating for a user (you'd draft a high volatility player with the expectation the risk is high versus the current OOTP dev that relies only on a dice roll).
Note 1: The 'volatility' idea is flat out stolen from a brilliant sports sim, Front Office Football, so if this idea is ever used you might want to change the term to something like 'risk assessment'.
Note 2: You can increase the talent % of rookies now, but then you get stuck with a completely unrealistic amount of superstars everywhere (tried it in test leagues).
Note 3: I realize this steps on the toes of the games scouting design, but many OOTP users will never use scouting in the game unless it's completely overhauled from what it has been in OOTP versions 1-8 (sorry for the bluntness but I believe that's accurate).

Priority It's a big change so I think the chances this actually happening is low, but the priority of the concept of OOTP prospects looking like real life baseball prospects is high.

[Ambermonk]

Suggestion
Allow in-game editing of players (as done previously).

Reason
During a game (in a fictional league) its nice to add a nickname or change a facegen for an opposing player. This would save trying to remember to go into the roster of the team after the game to "fix" the player.

Priority
Low

[Ambermonk]

Suggestion
Regarding basestealing: revisit relationship between catcher, pitcher & baserunner stats when determing the success of an attempted steal.

Reason
The basestealing success rate is too low when a good basestealer goes against a team with low pitcher/catcher prevention ratings in this area (i.e., a catcher with a 20% success rate against the rest of the league has an 80% success rate during a played game). This problem may have occurred with the last update.

Priority
Medium

[ms2002]

Suggestion
Make it easier to train a player in a new position (especially in the minor leagues). Make it able to lock a player at a position so that if the team is being run by the AI, then they'll be forced to play them at that position. Also, first base should be a universal position. Everyone should be able to play first, though some should obviously be more skilled than others.


Reason
Right now, it's nearly impossible to train a player to learn a new position unless you micro-manage every aspect of the minor leagues. This was much easier in OOTP6.

Priority
Medium

[ms2002]

Suggestion
Update DIPS engine. Add LD%, GB%, FB%, IF/F%, HR/F% as part of engine.

Reason
It's the latest breakthrough and it's proving to be one of the most accurate ways to evaluate/predict talent. Readings can be found at the Hardball Times.

Priority
Low - it would be very nice, though granted, a lot of work.

[Ambermonk]

Suggestion
Have the game engine remember whether the user prefers one-pitch or pitch-by-pitch.

Reason
One-pitch users shouldn't have manually change this common setting every time they play a game. Computers are good at doing these kinds of things.

Priority
Medium - should have been implemented a long time ago!

[ms2002]

Suggestion
For serious injuries, the amount of time for recovery should not be announced until a few weeks or months. For example, if a pitcher needs Tommy John Surgery, the injury time should say "Indefinite", then about a year later it should say whether his career is over or if he can return.

Reason
It's much more realistic that way. Career Ending Injuries are far too frequent in OOTP as it is, but when they do occur, they shouldn't always be announced on the spot. Usually it takes a while to determine the severity. For instance, when the Mariners' former top prospect Ryan Anderson tore a labrum, he was out for over a year. It wasn't until one or two years later that it was determined he would never play again. It makes it much more suspenseful that way, too.

Priority
Medium

[Raidergoo]

All suggestions in this thread have been collected.