Patch #2 - Development Report

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

This is precisely why a league-wide report is needed. Many, many people have been frustrated with this for a very long time. A league-wide report of some sort would go a very long way toward assuaging those many concerns. And keep in mind that there's a significant contingent that plays multiplayer only, and would therefore need to see it in an HTML report.

But those playing multiplayer can fire up the game and check the report there... since it has many options and is more a new screen than a new report a HTML version of it is not possible.

This screen can be viewed with any team in your league, so you can check all players of the league without problems.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

That's still the case in OOTP 9, only the swing does not happen in a single day now, but rather in a time frame of 3-12 months. The # of talent drops is now reduced considerably as well, especially those not tied to injuries.

My communication techniques can use improvement.

I think the idea of reducing the frequency of talent decrease is fine, but isn't the real issue. Or at least it's not even close to the full issue.

That said, looking only at pitchers, I can see/prove you've reduced talent hits pretty dramatically after about age 24-25. But, as I've said before, the term Talent appears to have no meaning physical meaning with regard to OOTP players. Talent is not a matter of "tools" or "skills" or "athleticism" or "desire" or anything else. Talent is a software construct that primarily defines current growth rate and direction. It would actually be clearer to remove "potential/talent" from the discussion and replace it with a value (calculated as = potential-rating) labeled "Current Growth Rate."

Assuming I am close to correct, I only really care about Talent because it is the mechanism by which OOTP moves future ratings.

So, what does this mean to us? OOTP has clearly reduced Talent _decreases_ after age 25 in v9. Talent _increases_ after various ages have been pretty much non-existent since v6, I think. If my interpretation is correct, this would mean that this change means OOTP v9 will reduce the variation we'll see in career types. In other words it is even less likely than before that you'll ever see a 30+ year old pitcher suddenly become much better than he already is. You'll never see, for example, a Steve Carlton raise his K/BF ratio from .16 to .2 then .23 at age 32 in OOTP (unless you have recalc on, of course). By random chance you might find this performance for 3 months or maybe even a season, but Carlton's K-rate stayed up there for several seasons, suggesting his performance was the result of a fundamental "rating" change, and not likely the result of random chance.

To find out if I was right, I ran one of my aging tests on one of my OOTP v9 leagues created on default settings...roughly 35 draft years worth of careers (2,500 total careers, though most of course don't make it much past 30).

Below is a chart I made of annual pitcher Movement rating changes by age. This says that 12% of 32 yo pitchers _did_ improve their movement rating, but by no more than 11/200 points. This was the greatest change of any 30+ yo pitcher (the "Max" row shows maximum increase of a movement rating), and I had 377 30 yo pitcher careers move through this test league. I have similar data for Stuff and Control. I haven't done the work with hitters yet, and may or may not even get to it.

At the bottom line are these apparent facts:

1) You had two problems - (a) the social issue of people complaining about seeing their great prospects die (b) the development curves (especially pitchers) being a bit out of whack. This is actually several problems, which are way to complex to go into here.
2) With people complaining about the rate of Talent change, I know you needed to do _something_ to quiet the crowd.
3) Your solution quiets the social problem--which is very good.
4) OOTP has not really supported those pleasant surprises of careers that get suddenly a lot better at age 32 (or whatever) since v5. Your solution makes this worse.
5) Slowly increasing or decreasing talent means only that the rate of rating change is slowed (and the rate of people complaining that their favorite players are getting killed is reduced). But reducing the rate of talent change reduces only serves to reduce the variation in OOTP careers and, though it makes folks feel better, does not really seem to match real life data very well.
6) The root of the _real_ problem caused by Talent change (to differentiate it from other root issues) was not due to the rate of talent change, but instead was/is the fact that OOTP makes lots of changes to talents of multiple rating categories at the same time. This drives major rating variations in all categories at the same time. It is fairly apparent that real life players _usually_ make big talent changes in only one area at a time (except for the Steve Blasses and Sandy Koufaxes of the world).
7) The engine seems to need big Talent changes in order to create more rapid rate of rating change.
8) So a better solution would have been to keep the rate of talent hits the same (or similar), but limit _most_ talent changes to single categories. In addition, it's still obvious--to me anyway--that you need to have the occasional big 40-50 point change in pitchers later in their career.
9) So, while I agree OOTP v9 reduced one element of the problem, the solution selected appears to have aggravated an existing problem (limited career arcs), and not addressed one of the primary causes of the problem to begin with (too many multiple category hits)

Anything beyond this will require one of my 30-page manifestos. Sorry about that.

[Church OOTP]

Thank you Markus for adding this feature ... and not just half assing it but really making it brilliant.

[ifspuds]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

But those playing multiplayer can fire up the game and check the report there...

The problem there is that some people don't always have access to the game but they do have access to the league website. For example, if they're at work when the sim is run and the results are posted. Development reports have long been one of the most popular pages to look at when a new sim is run, and to not have that HTML report on the league website is less than ideal.

I can't argue the point of how difficult it is to generate an HTML report from the screen, but I did want to point out the small flaw in the logic of the above statement.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by RonCo

6) The root of the _real_ problem caused by Talent change (to differentiate it from other root issues) was not due to the rate of talent change, but instead was/is the fact that OOTP makes lots of changes to talents of multiple rating categories at the same time. This drives major rating variations in all categories at the same time.

I won't begin to profess I understand the entire concept, though I want to, trust me. In the final analysis though, I'm not sure I can embrace this as a flaw, but rather a design decision. Isn't it, in reality, simply a measure of say, similar to the distance a person will stand in relation to the snap of a rubber band? The farther away, the more subtle the effect; the closer, the more obvious the sting? I think we want to those sudden snaps to be rare, like the players you chose to illustrate, and the gradual effect may be a bit more broad-sweeping as you mentioned, but in the end, aren't we achieving results of a very similar nature, even though the driving forces originate from opposite philosophies?

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by ifspuds

The problem there is that some people don't always have access to the game but they do have access to the league website. For example, if they're at work when the sim is run and the results are posted. Development reports have long been one of the most popular pages to look at when a new sim is run, and to not have that HTML report on the league website is less than ideal.

I can't argue the point of how difficult it is to generate an HTML report from the screen, but I did want to point out the small flaw in the logic of the above statement.

In an online league of--let's say--30 teams, at least 15 (50%) have no real stake in any actual sim. Sure, they want their guys to do well, but they aren't competing that season. For those teams the most important part of any individual sim are the development reports.

[ifspuds]

Originally Posted by RonCo

In an online league of--let's say--30 teams, at least 15 (50%) have no real stake in any actual sim. Sure, they want their guys to do well, but they aren't competing that season. For those teams the most important part of any individual sim are the development reports.

Exactly my point, but more elegantly stated. Thank you.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by endgame

I won't begin to profess I understand the entire concept, though I want to, trust me. In the final analysis though, I'm not sure I can embrace this as a flaw, but rather a design decision. Isn't it, in reality, simply a measure of say, similar to the distance a person will stand in relation to the snap of a rubber band? The farther away, the more subtle the effect; the closer, the more obvious the sting? I think we want to those sudden snaps to be rare, like the players you chose to illustrate, and the gradual effect may be a bit more broad-sweeping as you mentioned, but in the end, aren't we achieving results of a very similar nature, even though the driving forces originate from opposite philosophies?

I'm not sure I understand your differentiating between a design flaw and a design decision. Design decisions can certainly lead to flaws in the design. There are, of course, bugs too--a bug being defined as an error in implementing the design as envisioned. If you're saying that this behavior is a design decision, then I agree with you. Regardless, it's a design decision that has carried with it some unpleasant baggage.

[kq76]

Wow. I'm going to have to look at it closer and read all the posts, but so far this is better than I could have even imagined. Being able to compare from different time points? That's awesome, Markus! Thank you very very much!

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Anything beyond this will require one of my 30-page manifestos. Sorry about that.

I expect that in my inbox by the 1st of August.

[Long_Long_Name]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

But those playing multiplayer can fire up the game and check the report there... since it has many options and is more a new screen than a new report a HTML version of it is not possible.

This screen can be viewed with any team in your league, so you can check all players of the league without problems.

Well, yeah, they can check it from inside the game, but so can they check any part of the html report in the game.

If it's not feasible, that's too bad. But, it would be useful in the html reports just like any screen in the html report currently is.

[rasnell]

Going to be my new favorite feature. We've needed this for a long time.

[jbmagic]

Markus please make it sortable.

[whizkid1950]

I can't wait for this patch now; thanks for this addition