Data update only for 26

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by Reed

Actually I can sorta see Brads point (maybe) but I don’t know what the answer is. Let’s say you are playing career mode with injuries on. Ruth has a career ending injury in 1920. 1921 comes around and auto calc is done, the LTMs kick in. The LTMs don’t care that Ruth is out, they just want the league totals to be what they were IRL (with Ruth). So the players in the league will get a VERY slight boost to compensate for Ruth not being there when in reality maybe the league totals should be slightly lowered. (But it is not historically accurate to play 1921 without Ruth either……).

Yes the game is probably extremely accurate if you play real transactions real lineups but the more you deviate from that, the less accurate it will be. The lower accuracy will be so insignificant though that the user will never notice. But as Garlon stated, the LTMs monitor so many other factors.
Ok, I am getting a headache and could be totally “off base”.

Just don't run auto-calc if you don't want the tweaking to be done in those circumstances.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Rain King

Just don't run auto-calc if you don't want the tweaking to be done in those circumstances.

The initial LTM file doesn't produce historical results. That's why auto-calc is used.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Reed

Actually I can sorta see Brads point (maybe) but I don’t know what the answer is.

You see the point. Thank you.

The answer is ratings that by themselves produce historical performance for the year (randomization allowed) for individual players. This would allow leagues with historical talent and a historical talent and individual players to perform realistically.

[Rain King]

I just ran a default historical season without running auto-calc. Looks pretty good to me. What issues are you seeing?

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Rain King

I just ran a default historical season without running auto-calc. Looks pretty good to me. What issues are you seeing?

If the default file is pretty good that's an improvement. But my issue isn't really with a one year historical sim. My issue is that in a mutli year save LTMs over ride talent changes in the league. Also adjust and weaken changes in ratings not being kept within a pool of adjusted and weakened players amplify the problem. I can't be enthusiastic about a system where individual player performances are sacrificed for overall league output matching historical.

The most important statement in this thread concerning LTMs is in Matt's post.

"With the heavy ratings changes this year, the goal is to make sure that LTM don't really need to come in to play other than just some fine tuning around the edges."

That is where the game is going. I applaud it. While some here are arguing past use of LTMs is a perfectly wonderful solution, OOTP is moving away from that. So they are not perfectly wonderful to the devs regardless of the statements of contributors.

[Brad K]

There is hope for a stats only update and a two year rebuild of the game. There may be a "skip" precedent in the making as it is June and it is becoming more likely there won't be a game manual for 25. At this point if a major rebuild is planned rewriting the manual would be foolish.

[Brad K]

The season is about to end, patch had been released in the past few days, and some malfunctions introduced in 25 and many from prior versions still exist. My suggestion for a stats only update for 26, made months ago, looks increasingly like a possibility. But I suppose it's likely to avoided even though it's the best choice.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Brad K

The season is about to end, patch had been released in the past few days, and some malfunctions introduced in 25 and many from prior versions still exist. My suggestion for a stats only update for 26, made months ago, looks increasingly like a possibility. But I suppose it's likely to avoided even though it's the best choice.

Originally Posted by Sweed

Ask all you want but a data update only is never going to happen.

Nothing has changed.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Nothing has changed.

I recently learned Gary Grigsby is making ballpark art. Maybe he knows enough about baseball to make the game work. He knows more about game design than everyone who has ever worked at OOTP combined.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I recently learned Gary Grigsby is making ballpark art. Maybe he knows enough about baseball to make the game work. He knows more about game design than everyone who has ever worked at OOTP combined.

Sounds like you've found the guy that can make the baseball game you have always wanted.

FWIW War in the East 2 is being reviewed at the same rate as OOTP 25 (88% favorable). Reading his wikipedia he sounds like he is wargaming's "Markus Heinsohn". Except of course the inept OOTP Dev. team releases their game yearly along with PT, while Gary the genius puts out games.. well whenever.

[Brad K]

There are several things about Grigsby's war games that show that if he knows baseball he'd easily turn out a game superior to OOTP.

The first thing is his games don't need Battle Total Modifiers. The ratings of the aircraft, ships, land combat units, and weapons systems produce appropriate results on their own.

There is no setting for Admirals and Generals to get killed according to history. That's because a good one surviving longer than historical does not lower the performance of other Admirals and Generals.

Grigsby understands an experienced human is going to be able to do things a computer commander can never do so he builds in some help for the computer commander.

Grigsby understands different people want different levels of difficulty. So he puts in a "help human" or "help computer" selector.

Grigsby understands randomness can't be implausible. He wouldn't let Ernest Borgnine rise to the rank of Admiral but OOTP lets Tim Foli win the batting championship. It lets Bob Veale be the all time ERA leader if there is no history before 1951.

These are all things that Grigsby figured out early in his career that the OOTP team hasn't realized after 25 years. So if he knows baseball, he would turn out a superior game.

[spartacus007]

I've been playing this Challenge Mode league with real players and recalc on. These are the toughest years for OOTP to get right, but it's perfectly acceptable variation for me.



I can easily live with all that variation.

What I REALLY want is either more than 2 subleagues at a time or the Association feature fixed up. That's a much bigger threat to accuracy than a few players hitting a couple extra homers in 1921 if Ruth gets injured.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Brad K

There are several things about Grigsby's war games that show that if he knows baseball he'd easily turn out a game superior to OOTP.

The first thing is his games don't need Battle Total Modifiers. The ratings of the aircraft, ships, land combat units, and weapons systems produce appropriate results on their own.

There is no setting for Admirals and Generals to get killed according to history. That's because a good one surviving longer than historical does not lower the performance of other Admirals and Generals.

Grigsby understands an experienced human is going to be able to do things a computer commander can never do so he builds in some help for the computer commander.

Grigsby understands different people want different levels of difficulty. So he puts in a "help human" or "help computer" selector.

Grigsby understands randomness can't be implausible. He wouldn't let Ernest Borgnine rise to the rank of Admiral but OOTP lets Tim Foli win the batting championship. It lets Bob Veale be the all time ERA leader if there is no history before 1951.

These are all things that Grigsby figured out early in his career that the OOTP team hasn't realized after 25 years. So if he knows baseball, he would turn out a superior game.

And yet he only garners the same 88% positive rating that OOTP 25 has.

Can the WWII German Wehrmacht face off against the Vietnam era US army in a random debut war? If not why not?


If I had the man crush that you do on him, I'd pester him on whatever sights you can find him until he makes you a baseball game. Better yet you could front him the money to produce the game and then cash in when sales go through the roof. I mean it seems you know more about the gaming industry (baseball games in particular), what will sell and what won't, than Markus and co. that have only been able to stay in business for 25 years. So yeah, you take the risk, put up your money, and then reap the profits. Wait, what risk? There is no risk with you and Gary as a team. It would be like taking candy from a baby.

v26 is still not coming out as a "data update" only.

[Brad K]

How is having the same rating meaningful?

A couple decades ago Buck consistently ranked at the top of US cars in the J D Power surveys. And it's cars ranked above Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, and Chevrolets that were the same cars with different creases in the sheet metal and were built in teh same factories. Why?

Buick had the oldest owners of any US car. Even older than Cadillac. My theory was that the Buick owners couldn't see or hear well enough to detect defects.

LOL at your comment about me having a man crush on Grigsby. I suppose an appropriate response to that is to say [snipped]. However, the best response is to say that people resort to personal attacks on a poster when they can't dispute what that poster has posted.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Brad K

How is having the same rating meaningful?

A couple decades ago Buck consistently ranked at the top of US cars in the J D Power surveys. And it's cars ranked above Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, and Chevrolets that were the same cars with different creases in the sheet metal and were built in teh same factories. Why?

Buick had the oldest owners of any US car. Even older than Cadillac. My theory was that the Buick owners couldn't see or hear well enough to detect defects.

LOL at your comment about me having a man crush on Grigsby. I suppose an appropriate response to that is to say [snipped]. However, the best response is to say that people resort to personal attacks on a poster when they can't dispute what that poster has posted.

Man crush is not an insult, not sure how or why you would read it that way. Would fanboy have been a more acceptable term for you? I can't believe that would be a problem as it's used over and over again here for anyone that likes OOTP.

War in the East 2 still at 88%, the same rating as OOTP 25.

Does that mean 12% of wargamers think Grigsby is inept? I don't know. I would say it means 88% of users know that it's a computer game with it's own shortcomings that they can live with as the game tries to simulate commanding armies in a war.


The laughable part of all of this is, like many others here, you think you know the gaming industry better than those that have run a successful business for 25 plus years. This is not a situation that is limited to OOTP. It goes on with FM, all Draft Day Sports titles, EA Sports, 2k sports, and on and on and on. Doesn't matter if it's a large developer or a small one, you know the answers and they don't.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Man crush is not an insult, not sure how or why you would read it that way. Would fanboy have been a more acceptable term for you? I can't believe that would be a problem as it's used over and over again here for anyone that likes OOTP.

If you didn't consider it an insult you wouldn't have used it to address my post. It's not inappropriate to the mods, at least when directed to me, however my in kind response was deleted and I got a strike.

As I stated before, you had no viable response and so tossed out what you thought was an insult. And then you got protected from an in kind response. LOL.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Sweed

The laughable part of all of this is, like many others here, you think you know the gaming industry better than those that have run a successful business for 25 plus years. This is not a situation that is limited to OOTP. It goes on with FM, all Draft Day Sports titles, EA Sports, 2k sports, and on and on and on. Doesn't matter if it's a large developer or a small one, you know the answers and they don't.

Ah, but that isn't what happened here. I pointed out another more experienced game designer has better answers. That's far from being a poster that says he can't get is players to steal and demands a fix after playing three games.

[Syd Thrift]

This constantly comes up and if I'm being honest it always sounds like it's people who are peepee mad that OOTP is not the game that they want it to be. If you're looking for carefully curated seasons which are not calculated based on one-size-fits-all algorithms, I recommend Strat-o-Matic or Diamond Mind Baseball. There are no LTMs in those games, there's no "make this guy worse because he played in fewer games" (I remember SOM in particular was kind of "famous" every year for having a monster card or two you used for pinch-hitting purposes), lefty-righty splits are going to be super accurate, and so on. If you play 1961, Roger Maris will even hit 70 HRs in SOM as often as he'll hit 50! This is what you want, right?

You don't even need to try and magically turn Gary Grigsby into a baseball fan! The guys who make SOM have been at it since the early 60s. It's everything you're looking for in a baseball game except I guess price. OOTP is much more a game whose primary mode is GMing a team in the modern era and while I think it's done a great job at branching out from that, everything else really is an optional play mode to some extent. SOM and DMB are flat-out not that. They are first and foremost single-season sims.

I'll be honest: I don't actually think OOTP is actually that far behind those games in terms of fidelity of the data. I think in certain respects - fielding, for one, the interplay between pitching and defense, for two - I think OOTP's engine is actually superior to those games. I play fictional/historical games and IME it does around 95% of it pretty, pretty well otherwise. It's just plain not as good as Strat or Diamond Mind on a gestalt level and it probably never will be. It's simply not the aim of the game (and frankly, both SOM and DMB are trying to hang onto an ever-dwindling market share whereas OOTP has kind of *the* nerd cachet in terms of sports sims that aren't Football Manager). If you want to play that game instead, there is absolutely nothing stopping you. I used to buy SOM every year and even 20 years ago it did all the things you're wanting OOTP to do.

[Brad K]

That's a wonderful post Syd.

Summary: OOTP is so far ahead of the competition that I can tell you to buy another game without any fear you will. Due to it's superiority, no changes in OOTP are necessary for it to remain number one.

What you've presented here is an argument in favor of data only updates until the competition starts to close the gap.

[niu354]

Some excellent point being made, but I disagree with an overarching statement that OOTP is far and above its competition. That’s an oversimplification of the competitive market, rather markets, OOTP operates within. My understanding is OOTP’s roots are in the “MLB simulation” market, and the various game modes now put OOTP in indirect competition with The Show and various mobile games in addition to its “traditional” competitors.

I imagine (hope) OOTP is opening on a multi-year roadmap and only they know exactly which markets they are trying to penetrate and how far. That can be frustrating as a user, but very understandable from a business point of view.

If we’re seriously trying to influence OOTP’s plans, we should talk about what we want in OOTP 30.