Would like to see veterans get more credit?

[Treches]

Originally posted by SkyDog
The average numbers with 5.10 are obviously INCREDIBLY close to the way things have happened in baseball history. I'm uploading this universe to a web site if anyone wants to take a look. There are a few freaks of nature on the leader board worth looking at. This universe can be found at: www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/dynasty

In all honesty, that's because Markus is pretty open to tweak things based on documented feedback. Like Henry said, aging and developing received plenty of attention in beta, were again tweaked in 5.10 again and will probably be so if there's any oddity. For example, Markus implemented more variety of aging/developing curves in 5.10. Once thing that has me confused is that, in my testing, I saw too many guys with pretty good ratings (two 8-rated pitchers, for example) calling it a career at 36/37. It looked that they just retired for them just hitting the age. Do me a favor at check if there's something like that.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Treches
In all honesty, that's because Markus is pretty open to tweak things based on documented feedback. Like Henry said, aging and developing received plenty of attention in beta, were again tweaked in 5.10 again and will probably be so if there's any oddity. For example, Markus implemented more variety of aging/developing curves in 5.10. Once thing that has me confused is that, in my testing, I saw too many guys with pretty good ratings (two 8-rated pitchers, for example) calling it a career at 36/37. It looked that they just retired for them just hitting the age. Do me a favor at check if there's something like that.

That'll be hard to check with this universe, since I didn't save all players. My guess is that guys who called it a career like that aren't going to make it onto the leader board after a 100-year career. Not that it isn't happening, I just don't think I'll be able to find them.

[Henry]

Excellent analysis SkyDog ..and it helps to have someone other than the same people all the time confirming what we did in beta testing.

I think what you found does lead into a comment that I made earlier though... if Markus were to add some code where a few more veterans "volunteered" to retire rather than embarrasing themselves, that might be the only issue that still needs some attention.

One thing to note, however... if he does implement such an idea, that will lower the average career "end dates" so he'll have to tweak somewhere else to keep the accuracy he has now.

Henry

[spleen1015]

Excellent research SkyDog. Maybe the bell curve is too steep. Maybe it should be more of a hill than a mountain?

Originally posted by sixfour210
My statement was about Ruth and the Replay feature. I don't understand why if Ruth had a 16 HR rating at the age of 26, that he would decline significantly to the point where he only ends up with like 530 HR. He should continue to have a great career and then decline when he reaches an older age, not 28.

Haven't there been players that have done this in real life?

[CubsFan]

Originally posted by sixfour210
You guys need to calm down and stop jumping on people. Have some freaking patience. You'll live longer.

Anyway, I agree with bgheadjack. You won't see someone domintate the way Dwight Gooden did at 19. I've never seen it, and I'd like to see some proof. Just like it's damn near impossible to have a dominant season at 43 or so. And again, I'd like to see some proof.

As for the average age of retirement and breakdown, these are just averages. In the game, once every player hits 37, they will decline or will have already fell apart. In the MLB, at 38, Bonds is just getting started. This is not currently able to happen.

Back to the averages - the average breakdown age may be 37 or so but almost EVERY player in ootp breaks down at 37. I've never seen someone maintain, muchless gain, the same ratings past 38. In reality, players may break down at 34, 35, 39 or 40. So no, I don't think those figures show too much.

First, we are approaching this situation from different perspectives, sixfour210. I was calm when I posted the message you quoted. It was not my intent to jump on anyone. I apologize if my message came across that way. I do think that lengthy discussions about a topic that many feel is important to the game can only be productive if the participants inform themselves. An important part of that is listening to others' input on the subject. Here, that means reading the posts.

Second, you state your opinion that not enough players have superstar years at age 19 nor at 43. You imply that the dearth of such seasons is a weakness of the game. I believe differently. I have had a Rookie-of-the-Year pitcher, who went straight from the draft to the Majors at age 18, whose ERA was never higher than 3.50 for the first 5 years of his career, and who averaged over 15 wins during those years. His name was David Jenkins, and he was in an OOTP4 solo league. I have never had a player dominate at age 43. I'm not aware of this ever happening in reality either. I have had productive players make it into their early 40's, but I have not seem them have dominant seasons. I would consider it a game weakness to see this occur with every career league I started.

Third, I agree that players in OOTP often have cliff-dive style careers at the end. I agree that this often happens at a certain age. My guess is it is triggered by code that is tied to birth dates. It might be better to have more variability tied to these ends. I say "might," because my own research indicates that such career paths are actually quite common. I'm not yet convinced that OOTP is far from reality. I am, however, convinced that each subsequent variation of OOTP has come closer to mimicking reality than its predecessor. I believe this indicates a conscious plan on the part of the designers that is likely to continue.

Fourth, because of the positive strides in this direction, I feel confident that a positive discourse on the subject will yield additional strides. I do not feel any compulsion to repeat my arguments ad nauseum, nor to "convince" others that my view regarding the development curves are "right," nor that others' are "wrong."

Henry has spoken of the correlation between the law of averages, the game design, and the small likelihood of some of the things you claim "can't" happen. It may be that the game did not account for a "Barry Bonds-style" career path. I believe it is more likely that such a path exists within the game, but the odds of that path coinciding with a player of Bonds' ability are so high, that you may only see a Bonds-style player once in a hundred or more years. That seems about right to me, historically speaking. On the other hand, if you look hard enough, you may find other less talented players who enjoy similar career spikes in their late 30's, but whose spikes only got them into the 20 or 30 homerun region. By the way, how do those "Bonds-style" careers end? I'm sure Markus would like to know, as would many Giants fans. It sounds to me like you could let us know.

Enjoy the discussion.

[mgadfly]

After reading all ten pages of this and taking a look at my solo career (started in 2001 and is now in 2122) here is what I would like to see tweaked or adjusted:

1. A few more younger players going right into the majors (but just a few, don't get too carried away)
2. More veteran players calling it quits after they begin their decline, but before they are completely worthless
3. Have the decline arc stay the same, but have it less significant during a season, and more significant during the off-season. (And, have older guys who get injured risk the chance of a more severe ratings drop off)

The whole time I've felt that the numbers were probably close to being realistic (which apparently they are) but that something was a little off in the way we made it to the numbers. I still feel that way. The game does an incredible job of getting accurate results, however, I think it could be slightly tweaked in the above ways to make it get to the same place in a little better way.

[blmeanie]

Originally posted by sixfour210
#5 Aaron would never hit 755 HR in a replay in ootp. He wouldn't even come close. Even if you started him in his best year and simmed the rest, he still wouldn't because he would end his career too early. This would happen to Ruth also. In fact, I'm going to perform a little test and post the results here with both Ruth and Aaron.

Probably the best way to "replay" and achieve "realistic" results would be to play each season, then save the stats and reimport the players from Lahmans or whatever and play the next season, save the stats, etc.

The game will immediately vary from real life recreation as soon as you let it apply random development changes each season/offseason.

The Aaron that you'd be tracking could very well be an evil twin as far as the game engine would care.

The only way to have a shot at a recreation is to reload each year.

I believe that within one season's worth or simming or playing, the results can still be varied but you limit the amount of randomness in the process.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Treches
Once thing that has me confused is that, in my testing, I saw too many guys with pretty good ratings (two 8-rated pitchers, for example) calling it a career at 36/37. It looked that they just retired for them just hitting the age. Do me a favor at check if there's something like that.

I did see a couple of these guys. Looking in the batting average leaders, and there are some. Of course, this might be a great counterbalance for the "every player drops off the table" suggestion. Anyway, here's one: http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/dynasty/r2198.html . That's a particularly interesting one, because 500 HR's and 3,000 hits were both clearly within reach.

Speaking of freaks of nature, check this guy out. He was a 5-star guy at age 43 and got injured to end his career: http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/dynasty/r1276.html

[Gastric ReFlux]

Damn! 43 and it looks like he could still pitch.

[WLight]

Originally posted by mgadfly
After reading all ten pages of this and taking a look at my solo career (started in 2001 and is now in 2122) here is what I would like to see tweaked or adjusted:

1. A few more younger players going right into the majors (but just a few, don't get too carried away)
2. More veteran players calling it quits after they begin their decline, but before they are completely worthless
3. Have the decline arc stay the same, but have it less significant during a season, and more significant during the off-season. (And, have older guys who get injured risk the chance of a more severe ratings drop off)

The whole time I've felt that the numbers were probably close to being realistic (which apparently they are) but that something was a little off in the way we made it to the numbers. I still feel that way. The game does an incredible job of getting accurate results, however, I think it could be slightly tweaked in the above ways to make it get to the same place in a little better way.

I agree with every single word in mgadfly's post above. That's what my position has been all along.

I think it's fairly important that the mid-season collapse issue be addressed. I don't think it'd be too difficult to maintain the overall balance of the development curves in the game and tweak it such that a greater proportion of ratings changes (mostly wrt to the steep ones at the end, and to a lesser extent the beginning, of a guy's major league career) occur in the offseason.

[rangerforlife]

Originally posted by mgadfly
After reading all ten pages of this and taking a look at my solo career (started in 2001 and is now in 2122) here is what I would like to see tweaked or adjusted:

1. A few more younger players going right into the majors (but just a few, don't get too carried away)
2. More veteran players calling it quits after they begin their decline, but before they are completely worthless
3. Have the decline arc stay the same, but have it less significant during a season, and more significant during the off-season. (And, have older guys who get injured risk the chance of a more severe ratings drop off)

The whole time I've felt that the numbers were probably close to being realistic (which apparently they are) but that something was a little off in the way we made it to the numbers. I still feel that way. The game does an incredible job of getting accurate results, however, I think it could be slightly tweaked in the above ways to make it get to the same place in a little better way.

Great post.

The most important thing is that the game needs to be unpredictable, yet realistic. If the curve of player development and decline is too predictable, the game becomes too easy. If it is too unrealistic, then the game's quality suffers. The curve itself needs to be variable, within reason.

[lynchjm24]

Originally posted by sixfour210
Actually I can because a career .330 batter would never hit below .200 or anywhere around there in reality. Even if he was 40. The reason why he would retire would be because he mentally cannot cope with hitting .260 for the rest of his career when he's used to hitting .330.

God I hate these arguments.

First player I looked at

http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/simmoal01.shtml

A career .334 hitter who hit .203 at the age of 41.

[Bluenoser]

Originally posted by lynchjm24
God I hate these arguments.

Then why provoke them to continue?

First player I looked at

http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/simmoal01.shtml

A career .334 hitter who hit .203 at the age of 41. [/B]

In 133 AB's, just a tad less than when he was hitting over .300. Maybe, and we'll never know for sure, if he had 300 - 400 AB's that season he would have hit .260.

[lynchjm24]

Originally posted by BruceM

In 133 AB's, just a tad less than when he was hitting over .300. Maybe, and we'll never know for sure, if he had 300 - 400 AB's that season he would have hit .260.

But he didn't did he. We know exactly what he hit. .203 Sure it's a small sample size, but that's baseball. If you don't produce, you don't get infinite chances.

[Carlton]

Guys.

I think the main hangup is looking at the greats and wondering why they don't always live up to expectations...the age curve is purely random...

I can name 5 guys in my test leagues who had productive years over 40...but they AREN'T on the leaderboards

Fred Raymer
George McBride
Charlie Case
Tommy Leach
Ed Gremmlinger

Some who were
Cy Young
Ty Cobb
Tris Speaker
Nap Lajoie

Superstars who had a bad decline
Cy Young (in another test league)
Honus Wagner
Babe Ruth
Eppa Rixey
Babe Adams

and players who went into a gradual decline

Billy Hamilton...kicked it until he was 43
Joe Tinker
Frank Chance
Charlie Babb

and the freaks who kicked it up at age 36

Eddie Plank
Noodles Hahn
Christy Mathewson

All these guys changed dramatically from test league to test league...so there ya go every arguement is a valid one

Alot of players dip hard at 38
some slowly decline at 38
some start decline earlier
some get hit with injuries and decline fast
and a select few...will increase somewhat or play above their ratings at an advanced age

Just like baseball

[Henry]

Adding to your comments Carlton... the issue seems to be the same one all the time. Superstar players (Ruth, Bonds, Young and Cobb) are expected to do the same in OOTP. WHen they don't, the claim is that the game is flawed - yet I'm not sure how many truly understand the phrase "the game doesn't know names".

Ruth, Bonds, Young and Cobb have a better chance than most because their initial ratings are high - but to the game they are p267, p758, p923, and p334 and when their time comes to get a minus OR a plus to thier ratings, it happens.

TigerFan, I believe, has proved this point over and over with his HOB simulations. One time Ruth will hit 700 HRs, the next he'll hit 450, and the next he'll get injured at 27 years old.

The best way to experience this scenario is to play 100 hundred season runes like many of us have done - then you start to see the real beauty of the game

Henry

[Carlton]

Exactly I love Fred Raymer, not because he hit .360 for his career, (he hit .235) but because the little punk wouldn't quit.

I noticed Fred in my last test league for my 1901 league, there he was, on the major league roster at age 43...he backed up 2b and 3b all his career, his high games played was 92..lowest 33...scrappy he was...and the pinnacle of his playing days was being on the 1916 Brooklyn team and going 1-3 in PH appearances for the only Dodger WS team. He spent time in Boston, New York, Chicago and Brooklyn, eeking out his living, and creating a story that I will remember, and probably cry if in my next league, he plays 3 years and is out.

If you look too closely at the "heroes", you might miss the great stories that back them up