Modifier explination on a historical league

[Syd Thrift]

It doesn’t strike me as more “realistic” if half of the time Roger Maris hits 80 HRs since he never came close to 80 HRs in real life. We spoke a lot about realism vs accuracy over the years but apparently we’ve forgotten that. There are lots and lots of things that the game could do to add more accuracy while sacrificing realism. Getting rid of a bunch of the things that are in the game now, for instance, like pitch ratings or stamina, or adding in stuff like making it harder for players to get hits if they’re ahead of their real life pace. OOTP doesn’t do that because it’s not OOTP’s cause to make the most statistically accurate game out there, it’s their cause to make it the most realistic.

[Brad K]

It doesn't strike me as realistic that Maris never hits 61.

[Brad K]

OK, so would this be realistic?

Rate Maris for 55 HRs in 61

Cap him at 63.

But let's not get bogged in the details. I understand the goal is to have a realistic game, not one that will nearly duplicate any season selected. That's why we have development and TCR and injuries. However to virtually eliminate a player from having a one off outstanding year for a person playing single season is wrong. As is to eliminate that from possibility in career mode.

However, the real issue here is what the rating descriptions mean and what the different ratings do. And why extreme settings are being recommended as a way to get good results. If historical inputs don't produce good results then the problem isn't the inputs. It's the way the game handles them. If extreme settings actually fix things without breaking a lot of other stuff (which I doubt) then the basic game is broken.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Brad K

It doesn't strike me as realistic that Maris never hits 61.

I wonder if anyone has ever run 61 several times in row, using 1 year recalc. Would be interesting to compare how Maris did in say 10 consecutive runs of the 61 season.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I wonder if anyone has ever run 61 several times in row, using 1 year recalc. Would be interesting to compare how Maris did in say 10 consecutive runs of the 61 season.

Here is how Maris imports into the 1961 season with various settings. The reasons for the differences are unexplained at this point. Of course these are subject to adjustment from the league totals file.

They rated numbers for 1961 may be lower than shown. I say this because with one setting Mantle imports at 65 HRs.

So, do you think he has a chance?

[Brad K]

Here's a Mantle import single season neutralized, 64 not 65 as I stated above.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I wonder if anyone has ever run 61 several times in row, using 1 year recalc. Would be interesting to compare how Maris did in say 10 consecutive runs of the 61 season.

I'm not inclined to run any tests until there's an answer to why his rating varies from 39 to 55 for the same season.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I'm not inclined to run any tests until there's an answer to why his rating varies from 39 to 55 for the same season.

I understand.

[Rain King]

What does "neutral, modern Major League environment" mean though. I don't think those numbers are particularly relevant since they are not adjusted for the 1961 league totals/modifiers.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Rain King

What does "neutral, modern Major League environment" mean though. I don't think those numbers are particularly relevant since they are not adjusted for the 1961 league totals/modifiers.

Like "real stats" and "neutralized stats" I suspect it doesn't mean what would be commonly thought from the words. It's recently been learned that contrary to the manual "real" means "neutralized against the era_ballparks file then adjusted by having the home run peaks knocked off. "Neutralized" means neutralized against something other than the park factors used in the game, which sounds like showing up to work on a 65 Chevrolet with metric sockets.

Maris and Mantle were the elite of the HR hitters in 1961 and the HR rate was much higher in 2019 than in 1961. So shouldn't the ratings for a "modern neutral etc" be 75 or 80 HRs? So I have some doubts concerning whether modern neutral etc means what it appears to mean.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Maris and Mantle were the elite of the HR hitters in 1961 and the HR rate was much higher in 2019 than in 1961. So shouldn't the ratings for a "modern neutral etc" be 75 or 80 HRs? So I have some doubts concerning whether modern neutral etc means what it appears to mean.

It means something like 'modern neutral' as in more 2010, not 2020.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

It means something like 'modern neutral' as in more 2010, not 2020.

Yea, that makes sense from what I've observed. I bought 11 on a DVD and didn't notice any significant differences in ratings between that and 21 and 22. Thank you for your answer.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Cap him at 63.

There's no mechanism to cap a player at any level, as I've explained several times here. The game doesn't work that way, nor should it.

That's a rabbit hole we'll never go down, because when you start messing with math and probability to rig the results, it leaves you with a totally different game than OOTP is, where we're using pure math and pure probability, which means outliers can and do happen.

OOTP isn't really designed to have 'perfect' single season replays anyway, on an individual player level, it's designed to get better long-term results than single season. The single season results are also better on a league-wide level than an individual level.

That's because there's no way to get 'perfect' single-season results where players perform exactly as they did in real life life with no outliers without rigging the outcome in the code, boosting and braking players, and forcing specific results in specific games or ab's and that takes away from the genuineness (Not sure that's exactly the right word... Integrity is a bit grandiose, but you could use that as well) of the game, if that makes any sense.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by thehef

It should be: "Maris & Mantle - assuming similar-to-real-life usage, should hit around the same number of HR's. Maybe a few more, maybe a few less." That's the idea with 1-year recalc and single-season settings, right? So I don't get it...

The problem is, this is not how probability works and if you use real probability, that means there are going to be outliers, both high and low.

There's no way to get what you seem to want, which, correct me if I'm wrong, Maris hitting something like 59-63 HR's every time you reply the 61 season, without abandoning real probability and manipulating things behind the scenes to force guys to perform within a very narrow band.

[Brad K]

I'm personally not interested in single season play. I mentioned the issue for those who are interested in single season play. I'm not promoting the idea the game should do what's best for my method of play and to heck with everything else!

The method of no hidden math is right for multi year play. However I doubt it meets the expectations of those who select the button for single season. Perhaps it would be best to not provide a single season feature.

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I wonder if anyone has ever run 61 several times in row, using 1 year recalc. Would be interesting to compare how Maris did in say 10 consecutive runs of the 61 season.

This is going to seem staged, but I just did this with the following results.

Ratings for Single Season Replay.
As played lineups and transactions.


Season 1 - 49
Season 2 - 54
Season 3 - 54
Season 4 - 56 (Mantle hit 64)
Season 5 - 55
Season 6 - 44
Season 7 - 58
Season 8 - 54
Season 9 - 55
Season 10 - 61

https://www.screencast.com/t/Hgwmk8Fh

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Rain King

This is going to seem staged, but I just did this with the following results.

Ratings for Single Season Replay.
As played lineups and transactions.


Season 1 - 49
Season 2 - 54
Season 3 - 54
Season 4 - 56 (Mantle hit 64)
Season 5 - 55
Season 6 - 44
Season 7 - 58
Season 8 - 54
Season 9 - 55
Season 10 - 61

https://www.screencast.com/t/Hgwmk8Fh

That's pretty impressive. Would love to see what results folks would get using Strat, Diamondmind, ActionPc etc.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

It doesn’t strike me as more “realistic”...adding in stuff like making it harder for players to get hits if they’re ahead of their real life pace. OOTP doesn’t do that because it’s not OOTP’s cause to make the most statistically accurate game out there, it’s their cause to make it the most realistic.

Yes, this is a really good point.

And if you think perfectly accurate single-season numbers individual players should be the paramount goal of the game in a single-season replay, and kind of like the idea of a cap or a brake on players, stop and think what sacrificing realism for accuracy in that way would actually mean.

Let's say we capped a player's HR's at 3 over what they hit in real life and also added in some code to make players below their real life numbers come up closer to those.

So you're playing the 61 Yankees in a single-season replay. You're getting great years from Mantle and Maris, they're even on pace to outperform their real life numbers. But you've had some bad luck in one run games and also lost head to head a few more times to the Tigers than the real 61 Yankees did.

So you're heading into the last week of the regular season tied up with the Tigers. Maris has already hit 64 HR's! and Mantle has hit 57! Both hit 4 HR's in the last week!

They're both a little above their real life BA's as well, and have a few more hits than they 'should'. That's great! They're so hot, they'll surely carry you to the pennant, right?

Oh, but wait, that actually means that they hit their internal caps

So now you as the manager, know that for the last week of the season, the game is going to rig things and prevent them from hitting any home runs. Or, if it's not a pure cap but a brake, maybe we'll just decrease their behind the scenes power ratings to something like an average Rafael Belliard season. And since they're over their targeted hit numbers and BA as well, they're going to likely hit around .100 at best to even that out too.

Ouch, that's gonna hurt

But, wait... Hector Lopez hasn't hit any HR's for the year, and Bob Cerv only has half what he's 'supposed' to have, with 3. Both are also quite a bit below their 'correct' batting averages as well.

So you know the game is very likely going to force feed some hits and HR's to each of them to get them caught up to their 'right' numbers.

Cerv is really your secret weapon. When he got off to a bad start in the first couple months of the season before coming over from the Angels, you had enough foresight to realize that if you benched him then, while he was doing so badly and played him very sparingly the rest of the year, you'd be able to save him for later in the season when the game would have to buff him a lot and send him on a big hot streak to get him anywhere close to his 'accurate' numbers.

So all is not lost! You can just go ahead and replace Mantle and Maris in the lineup for the last week of the season with Cerv and Lopez, and the pennant should be yours. Now that's just great managing!

Obviously, I'm kind of making this as dramatic as possible, but this is genuinely the kind of unrealistic, gamey situation you can end up in if you start fudging things behind the scenes and favoring hard-core individual player season level accuracy over targeting realism and league wide accuracy while using realistic probability and playing it straight.

Hard to see where that makes the game better or more realistic in any way, even if the pure numbers on an individual player level would technically be more 'accurate'.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Rain King

This is going to seem staged, but I just did this with the following results.

Ratings for Single Season Replay.
As played lineups and transactions.


Season 1 - 49
Season 2 - 54
Season 3 - 54
Season 4 - 56 (Mantle hit 64)
Season 5 - 55
Season 6 - 44
Season 7 - 58
Season 8 - 54
Season 9 - 55
Season 10 - 61

https://www.screencast.com/t/Hgwmk8Fh

That's with the import where he's rated at 55 HRs?

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by Brad K

That's with the import where he's rated at 55 HRs?

I checked the editor in a handful of the seasons and in each of them the "Resulting Stats (in a neutral, modern Major League environment)" says 46 HR's.