Relative or True Ratings?

[PSUColonel]

Which ratings set to people find to be realistic and/or useful and why?... Relative ratings...or true component ratings?

I am asking this for the purposes of modern MLB...NOT HISTORICAL LEAGUES.



Discuss.

[krownroyal83]

Could you tell me what the difference between relative and true ratings are?

[Bobfather]

I am confused by Potential ratings. I thought that was a players ceiling. So in my mind if Overall = Potential then the player was at his peak. But Potential ratings can change, so now I am just confused.

[redmoss2]

Originally Posted by Bobfather

I am confused by Potential ratings. I thought that was a players ceiling. So in my mind if Overall = Potential then the player was at his peak. But Potential ratings can change, so now I am just confused.

You have two overall ratings: Overall, and Potential (OVR and POT for short). These are basically all of the player's ratings such as hitting ratings, fielding, baserunning condensed into one value to give you a rough idea how good they currently are (OVR) and how could they could potentially be (POT).

The first thing you'll notice is that if you change the player's position, OVR might go down or up, since these values are role-dependent.

The second thing is yes, both these values can change over time. Two reasons:

1) Scouts are not 100% accurate (unless you turn off the scouting system). The accuracy of the OVR and POT values is dependent on several factors, such as the amount of money you've invested in scouting for the player's level, the scout's ability, etc.

2) OVR and POT, independent of your scouting quality also changes due to the ravages of time on a player.

The reason for POT changing is a mixture of 1) and 2). The fact that as the player ages, their POT begins to go down (there may be other reasons but this is the main one), but before they hit their peak, your scouting is less accurate since they may be coming out of the minors. So you rarely get a 100% stable picture. What you see in most cases is that the player's OVR rises to meet POT, hits it, and then POT and OVR decline in tandem. The reason why you can have OVR be less than pot at the player's peak (where OVR = POT), is that they might be injured, low morale, and need time to bring it back up.

For this reason, I tend to think of POT as their actual ability (which like everyone is subject to change), and OVR is just whether or not they're operating at full capacity at this current time.

So the combination of scouting being imprecise and that players are in decline from a certain age, and weakened by injury etc means you can see POT change. They aren't meant to be golden values, a 50 POT guy could still hit a couple of seasons of .300/.400/.500, it's just less likely to happen as often as your 70 POT guy (provided they are actually 70 POT behind the scenes). Don't go completely by the player ratings, let the performance and stats speak for themselves.

[redmoss2]

In fact, I found an example of how extreme potential changes can be. The reason they started at 20 and ended up at 70 is due to scouting ability and scouting budgets. Now they're established and well scouted, this value won't change much until they start physically declining.

[PSUColonel]

So do people find it more realistic to use relative ratings, or the true composite ratings?

The way I see it...once a player gets to A+ level, it is fairly easy to determine who the more advanced players are (current ratings) no matter which you use. (relative or true). The hard part is trying to determine which players have progressed at the lower levels where all the players are usually rated a 20 overall...but with relative ratings, you can easily determine who the better players are. (current ratings). If you are using true ratings, you have to sort through the individual tools, and decide who you think is the most advanced. (again current ratings)

[NoOne]

you have to do a bit more translating of what you see into something more useful if it is on "Relative."

you'd get used to it either way. i'd look at how it affects AI choices, if at all. that may be a far more greater impact on gameplay.... or not.

if i recall, i switched to relative ovr/pot a couple years ago due to how it affected relievers' ratings. i think it actually helps spread out differentiation of the relievers in a good way. i still would prefer not to have this on relative.

if you are used to one way, you likely prefer it. there's no real problem with either that i know of. just an extra step to compare apples to oranges, if they are not the same position.

and, if you don't sort by ovr/pot, it likely has zero effect on you. *or, simply don't care much about those ovr/pot ratings in other ways.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by NoOne

you have to do a bit more translating of what you see into something more useful if it is on "Relative."

you'd get used to it either way. i'd look at how it affects AI choices, if at all. that may be a far more greater impact on gameplay.... or not.

if i recall, i switched to relative ovr/pot a couple years ago due to how it affected relievers' ratings. i think it actually helps spread out differentiation of the relievers in a good way. i still would prefer not to have this on relative.

if you are used to one way, you likely prefer it. there's no real problem with either that i know of. just an extra step to compare apples to oranges, if they are not the same position.

and, if you don't sort by ovr/pot, it likely has zero effect on you. *or, simply don't care much about those ovr/pot ratings in other ways.

I am not sure it affects the AI at all....I feel it’s just a display feature. In fact I would venture to bet the AI always uses relative ratings.

[PSUColonel]

So basically ( this is what I think not what I know) if you use relative ratings ...you are seeing what the AI sees when it comes to lower level leagues.( and upper level leagues...but those leagues are easy to distinguish differences between players...lower level leagues are not)

[Matt Arnold]

That setting should not affect the AI, it's purely a display issue for what you see. Pick whichever one you prefer - we give you the options for a reason, we know not everyone likes seeing things the same way.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

So basically ( this is what I think not what I know) if you use relative ratings ...you are seeing what the AI sees when it comes to lower level leagues.( and upper level leagues...but those leagues are easy to distinguish differences between players...lower level leagues are not)

i had tunnel vision on relative by position... but per level relative to MLB is similar logic to what i said above.

i'd always recommend the closest to actual ratings that scouting accuracy allows. relative to a position or another league makes it float - i.e. less consistent year-to-year what any particular rating means as far as comparing past experiences to present or even more systematic approaches etc etc.