Please take a good hard look at POWER vs CONTACT balance

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Even though the game presents you with a Contact rating, that rating is not used directly by the game. Basically, so far as I know, the game flow looks like:

- determine if a player struck out
- if not, determine if they walked
- if not, determine if they hit a HR
- if not, determine if their ball in play was a hit or not

This view would suggest that HR% and BB% depend on K%, but I don't think that bears out in data. Each seems to be independent of K%, looking at BB, HR rates for different avoidK values.

[Jeff1787]

Are all of these theories or do you guys have inside info from the developers?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

This view would suggest that HR% and BB% depend on K%, but I don't think that bears out in data. Each seems to be independent of K%, looking at BB, HR rates for different avoidK values.

They may figure out the 3TO all at once.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Jeff1787

Are all of these theories or do you guys have inside info from the developers?

I was on the beta team many, many years ago and *believe* I heard it talked about there. I know one of the years was the one RonCo raised a lot of commotion about how the engine ought to run and got some assurances that they’d change it.

[Spieler]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Even though the game presents you with a Contact rating, that rating is not used directly by the game. Basically, so far as I know, the game flow looks like:

- determine if a player struck out
- if not, determine if they walked
- if not, determine if they hit a HR
- if not, determine if their ball in play was a hit or not

No matter what the ceiling of any of those are, you’re not going to have a stack overflow when you “combine” them because you’ll never combine those ratings. There’s some sort of “stuff vs avoid Ks” kind of mojo that occurs but IME you don’t see stack overflow issues there either, and there are a variety of ways to avoid that, and I don’t know exactly how the game makes those “rolls” I noted above in the first place, so I’m not even going to speculate on how.

Just, as the big takeaway, Contact is not directly used by the game, only its component parts.

I think you are close, I see the game flow more like:
- determine if a batter is HBP (hidden ratings for both P and hitter IIRC)
- determine if a batter walked (Eye vs Control, maybe +/- some C Ability too)
- determine if a batter K'ed (AvK vs Stuff, maybe +/- some C Ability too)
- contact made: determine if it went for a HR (Power vs MOV, +/- park factors)
- determine if the ball in the field of play is a hit (BABIP +/- fielding, +/- park factors)
- (somewhere fielding errors come into play here too)
- determine if a hit is a XBH (GAP, +/- park factors + baserunning, possibly fielding/arm)

[Spieler]

Originally Posted by Jeff1787

Are all of these theories or do you guys have inside info from the developers?

Think it has been known for a long time that the game is FIP based. Ergo, if you catch up on your Bill James et al, you can kind of put things together.

[SF Giants]

I am a casual player. I open the game in the morning before going to work to sign up for some tournaments, check the played games from last night and scroll auction house for a good catch. The same thing then at night. During weekends I have usually a bit more time to tinker with tournament/regular team settings and monitor auction house. What I want to say is that I don't want to spend a lot of time looking for bugs for my advantage. I am happy to build my team just on basic premises. I take these basic premises from standard game e.g. that most important defensive positions are CF, SS, RF and what marginal value they approximatelly add or how the contact and movement ratings are calculated.

Yet the PT differs from some reason.

It differs. Not in the rating calculations yet still in the basic things like how much defense matter at catcher's position. Yes, this "fixed" issue made me so dissapointed that I just sold my whole regular PT team and stopped actively playing it for a few weeks. The issue here is that PT differs(ed) from standard game in the way it couldn't be predicted. I understand that it isn't written anywhere the engines should be identical however given the way how hard is to collect unbiased sample to evaluate every aspect separatelly I still consider it as hard to spot thing (congrats to all who found on their own much earlier than me).

And now this topic ... the game makes much more sense after reading this thread.

But it also shows how unbelievably messed up the meta game, the ratings and how way off the card overall numbers are. I would never ever guess that when hitters hit in different league the numbers are more related to hitter competition than the quality of facing pitchers. That's just lazy way how to balance the game! Instead of balancing the cards to fit the top level (yes meta is balanced based on the top players), normalization is put in place. Which as side effect in combination with uncapped ratings creates the non-sense that when a hit homerun doesn't fit into the quota than it isn't even a hit.

Quick fix is to adjust at least that "homers out of quota" don't fall into category of fly outs that often. (what's the current rating? Based on hitters rating? So 1/4-1/3 approx.?) Long term is to lift up the quotas and balance pitchers and hitters ratings to create the equilibrium itself. Yes, it won't be easy and many things will come to play as e.g. supply of cards based on their ratings must remain even. BUT IT IS DEFINITELLY BETTER SOLUTION THAN THE ONE WHICH IS IMPLEMENTED NOW...

EDIT: or alternatively split the stats of contact to individual ratings so it is more clear what will happen with players stats under quota... -> cards will be comparable and contact will correlate with batting AVG much more...

EDIT2: I am seriously angry about this and hope that devs will provide an official comment for this mess

[RonCo]

Assuming PT works in the same basic engine as the base game, a league's stats are not actually capped... though I suppose it can look that way.

[RonCo]

But it does make sense that if ratings are skewed from a normal "average" across a league that individual players would not perform as some might expect them to. And I'd guess AvK is a place it might look wonky... mostly i'd guess due to the large number of ks vs. Walks and HR, and because pitcher stuff would probably be a lot better in all-star player sets than it would be in a normal league.

I'm not really a PT guy, though, so I'm on thin ice there.

[Syd Thrift]

RF isn’t “one of the important positions” in anyone’s calculus. I mean, it’s more important than LF and 1B but the spectrum has always had CF, SS, C, and 2B as more important, ever since there was a defensive spectrum. 3B is IIRC about on par.

[SF Giants]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

RF isn’t “one of the important positions” in anyone’s calculus. I mean, it’s more important than LF and 1B but the spectrum has always had CF, SS, C, and 2B as more important, ever since there was a defensive spectrum. 3B is IIRC about on par.

I wrote that in haste, made a million edits but forgot to correct this one. You are obviously right.

[pappyzan]

OOTP game engine concepts discussed in this thread are nothing new, they've been around for well over a decade. For instance, take the concept of League Totals. The link below details the concept of League Totals, it's from the oldest online OOTP manual I've found, OOTP 11 (10 years ago).

https://manuals.ootpdevelopments.com...tals_modifiers

PT is primarily based on OOTP's base game engine; PT19 & 20 were based on 2010 totals I think? Chances are 21 is as well. Normalization (League Totals) is likely the only way to provide league-wide statistics that make any sense, I wouldn't call that lazy by any stretch. I'd assume it's been done this way in the base game since OOTP's inception.

I'm not saying there aren't things that need to be addressed, catcher DEF is one of them, but normalization probably isn't going away anytime soon.

[Matt Arnold]

As I always say in these cases, we can create a setup where Ruth and Bonds are hitting 60 HR a season, and Gwynn and Cobb are hitting .370, but if we give that to you, you can't complain that Maddux and Pedro have ERAs of 8, and that the average score is 14-9. Something has to give, so the way we handle league totals does a pretty good job at that.

Now, that being said, I'd agree as well that the game definitely is much tougher on power hitters or guys with low avoidK ratings. It's definitely on our radar screen, and we'll certainly investigate what changes we think would create a better and more fun balance, whether that's ratings, game engine, modifiers, etc... I can't say.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

As I always say in these cases, we can create a setup where Ruth and Bonds are hitting 60 HR a season, and Gwynn and Cobb are hitting .370, but if we give that to you, you can't complain that Maddux and Pedro have ERAs of 8, and that the average score is 14-9. Something has to give, so the way we handle league totals does a pretty good job at that.

Good way of putting it.

[Coriolanus]

my thought on how to address it is that there needs to be a better floor for power hitters. I'm admittedly not sure how that works but it would seem to need to be related not to a pitcher's movement, but to consistency.

Gap and singles hitters may hit a mistake pitch pretty well, but there is only so much they can do. The classic power hitters punish mistakes with extreme prejudice. this forces pitchers to be more tentative which gives them a much greater advantage over the punch & judy or occasional home run hitter. maybe some of it plays into whether the guy is a pull hitter and the mistake occurs in his preferred pocket.

Maybe in some cases the game checks for home runs before it checks for strikeouts.

[SF Giants]

Originally Posted by pappyzan

https://manuals.ootpdevelopments.com...tals_modifiers

Thanks, I am gonna read it, to avoid any other surprise.

Originally Posted by pappyzan

PT is primarily based on OOTP's base game engine; I'm not saying there aren't things that need to be addressed, catcher DEF is one of them

You are mentioning "them" - any other things which can't be found in manual or are different from base game engine ?

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

As I always say in these cases, we can create a setup where Ruth and Bonds are hitting 60 HR a season, and Gwynn and Cobb are hitting .370, but if we give that to you, you can't complain that Maddux and Pedro have ERAs of 8, and that the average score is 14-9. Something has to give, so the way we handle league totals does a pretty good job at that.

Now, that being said, I'd agree as well that the game definitely is much tougher on power hitters or guys with low avoidK ratings. It's definitely on our radar screen, and we'll certainly investigate what changes we think would create a better and more fun balance, whether that's ratings, game engine, modifiers, etc... I can't say.

You understood me wrong here. I don't care about Ruth and Bond hitting 60HR a season. I care that if there are only Bonds and Ruths in the league, the total isn't fixed to 2900 so each Bond/Ruth gets their share ... but ... based on who they face either Madduxs or Koufaxs the league total shifts -> in other words, total count of HR is dependent on ratio of league averages of POWER and MOVEMENT. Exempli gratia, POWER > MOVEMENT = HOMERS > 2900
vs POWER < MOVEMENT = HOMERS < 2900

The obvious issue here is that isn't easy to properly balance the game based on ratings because of influx of new cards every week (mainly collections skew the ratio between performance and price), various levels of gameplay (league systems), historical stats on which the cards are based on (monster cards like Tris Speaker) etc. On the other side, due to influx of new cards every week, you developers have a great tool at your hands to influence the meta...

Btw, now I am curious how the engine works in matter of distribution of homers/hits/strikeouts based on the ratings. If I have a hitter with 100 power in league where average is 120 and actually my hitter has the LOWEST power among them - will he hit close to 10-20 homers or will those homers spread more evenly e.g. from 30 to 50 HRs (linear vs exponential function)?

[ubernoob]

Honestly I kinda just wished we joined leagues like we do tournaments.

Would be much more fun to put together a team for leagues that had some type of cap or playstyle (via normalization year) changes.

[RonCo]

Unless PT works differently from base OOTP, stats are not actually capped and distributed as it seems is being discussed.

[RonCo]

To SFGiants 100 power example/question, the answer is: it depends on which pitchers the guy faces, the ball parks they play in, and some random luck

[rburgh]

As I always say in these cases, we can create a setup where Ruth and Bonds are hitting 60 HR a season, and Gwynn and Cobb are hitting .370, but if we give that to you, you can't complain that Maddux and Pedro have ERAs of 8, and that the average score is 14-9. Something has to give, so the way we handle league totals does a pretty good job at that.

I spent 10 years playing the online strat-o-matic game. That game IS hitter driven. Player cards are assigned fixed salaries, and leagues are run at various hard caps. At the highest level, the HOF starting pitcher cards would routinely put up 5+ ERA's and the top HR hitters would often hit 80 or 90 HRs in that environment.


Here's a season final stats page for the hitters in one of those leagues.

----BATTING AVERAGE---- --------AT BATS-------- ------RUNS SCORED------
N.Lajoie CAR .380 S.Musial BUR 709 B.Bonds EVE 160
A.Vaughan SMA .363 A.Simmons NOT 658 M.Mantle AMA 153
H.Wagner BUR .352 J.Beckwith AUD 656 B.Ruth BUR 152
A.Simmons NOT .345 E.Delahanty AUD 653 F.Thomas BRO 146
J.Beckwith AUD .329 R.Hornsby NAZ 651 L.Gehrig SMA 140
J.Gibson THU .325 T.Stearnes SMA 649 H.Wilson THE 136
H.Aaron NAZ .325 L.Gehrig SMA 648 J.Foxx BRO 134
R.Hornsby NAZ .324 T.Speaker CAR 645 W.Mays NOT 133
T.Speaker CAR .324 H.Aaron NAZ 644 A.Vaughan SMA 132
E.Delahanty AUD .323 W.Brown SEA 642 A.Simmons NOT 129
L.Gehrig SMA .323 J.Foxx BRO 633 J.Dimaggio AUD 128
J.Dimaggio AUD .322 J.Gibson THU 633 R.Hornsby NAZ 128

----------HITS--------- --------DOUBLES-------- --------TRIPLES--------
A.Simmons NOT 227 R.Yount SEA 51 B.Dahlen NOT 18
S.Musial BUR 218 L.Gehrig SMA 50 L.Gehrig SMA 18
N.Lajoie CAR 216 N.Lajoie CAR 46 G.Brett EVE 17
J.Beckwith AUD 216 J.Dimaggio AUD 46 S.Musial BUR 17
H.Wagner BUR 214 T.Speaker CAR 45 A.Simmons NOT 16
E.Delahanty AUD 211 C.Ripken THE 43 W.Brown SEA 15
R.Hornsby NAZ 211 E.Delahanty AUD 42 E.Delahanty AUD 15
T.Speaker CAR 209 A.Simmons NOT 42 T.Stearnes SMA 15
H.Aaron NAZ 209 B.Ruth BUR 42 T.Speaker CAR 12
L.Gehrig SMA 209 J.Wilson CAR 40 B.Hamilton NAZ 12
J.Gibson THU 206 N.Garciaparra AUD 40 R.Alomar THE 12
A.Vaughan SMA 205 H.Wagner BUR 39 OTHERS TIED WITH 11

--------HOMERUNS------- -----RUNS BATTED IN---- ---------WALKS---------
B.Bonds EVE 86 B.Bonds EVE 180 B.Bonds EVE 153
R.Kiner BRO 70 L.Gehrig SMA 165 B.Ruth BUR 146
W.Mays NOT 70 W.Mays NOT 158 J.Giambi AMA 124
H.Wilson THE 65 M.Mantle AMA 158 J.Morgan NOT 123
M.Mantle AMA 62 F.Thomas BRO 154 F.Thomas BRO 122
F.Thomas BRO 61 M.Schmidt NOT 152 B.Giles BUR 119
M.Schmidt NOT 59 H.Wilson THE 150 J.Clark AUD 115
A.Simmons NOT 57 R.Kiner BRO 148 T.Williams THE 111
H.Greenberg NAZ 57 A.Simmons NOT 144 M.Mantle AMA 104
L.Gehrig SMA 56 J.Dimaggio AUD 141 C.Yastrzemski BRO 103
OTHERS TIED WITH 55 J.Beckwith AUD 140 M.McGwire THU 103
T.Stearnes SMA 140 C.Jones SMA 97

And here's the final pitching stats page.

----------WINS--------- ---------LOSSES-------- ------WINNING PCT------
K.Brown NOT 22 S.Koufax EVE 25 L.Corcoran BUR .765
R.Clemens NOT 21 T.Keefe BRO 24 C.Bender CAR .731
W.Johnson AMA 21 E.Walsh SEA 22 F.Sullivan NOT .706
G.Maddux THE 21 C.Young BRO 22 G.Maddux THE .700
E.Reulbach CAR 20 J.Marichal EVE 19 K.Brown NOT .688
C.Bender CAR 19 T.Brown THU 19 R.Clemens NOT .677
D.Gooden EVE 19 P.Martinez SEA 18 E.Reulbach CAR .667
E.Walsh SEA 18 E.Cicotte SEA 17 B.Sutter THE .654
C.Mathewson BRO 18 D.Sutton NAZ 17 W.Johnson AMA .636
T.Brown THU 18 D.Gooden EVE 17 J.Pfiester SMA .593
A.Joss THU 18 D.McNally AMA 17 T.Seaver AUD .577
OTHERS TIED WITH 17 L.Tiant *** 17 OTHERS TIED WITH .556

----------ERA---------- ----INNINGS PITCHED---- ----------TBF----------
H.Wilhelm AMA 4.19 E.Walsh SEA 345.0 E.Walsh SEA 1501
D.Leonard AMA 4.44 D.Gooden EVE 327.1 D.Sutton NAZ 1444
E.Reulbach CAR 4.49 D.Sutton NAZ 311.2 D.Gooden EVE 1412
G.Maddux THE 4.71 G.Maddux THE 311.1 S.Koufax EVE 1342
C.Bender CAR 4.75 T.Brown THU 300.2 P.Martinez SEA 1341
G.Hecker BUR 4.96 P.Martinez SEA 299.2 J.Marichal EVE 1337
D.Gooden EVE 4.98 J.Marichal EVE 296.1 T.Brown THU 1336
T.Brown THU 5.00 S.Koufax EVE 295.2 G.Maddux THE 1320
W.Johnson AMA 5.26 W.Johnson AMA 292.1 W.Johnson AMA 1255
E.Walsh SEA 5.40 C.Mathewson BRO 285.1 K.Brown NOT 1251
R.Johnson THE 5.43 K.Brown NOT 279.1 C.Mathewson BRO 1248
P.Martinez SEA 5.50 E.Reulbach CAR 278.2 E.Reulbach CAR 1205

Sorry about the formatting, but they use a typewriter font and this site uses a variable letter width font. Note that Ed Walsh threw 345 innings to a 5.40 ERA - he would have started 41 games, most likely. And Wilhelm would have been a reliever who pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, a flaw that this site does NOT have AFAIK.