AI scouting "hidden" talent

[jbone]

I heard that the AI is rumored to be doing this, though perhaps at such a low rate that it isn't even noticable. No AI team has signed a hidden player in the last four months in my game, and I'm not sure before that, either.

(Meanwhile, I just uncovered a 21 yo SP who is 5 stars (current ability!), with ratings of 20/16/18 and 11 endurance).

Perhaps I need to scale down my scouting efforts to keep the game fair (I was already only using three scouts for international - perhaps I go to one?).

Has it been considered to increase the rate that AI is finding players (if they are actually doing it at all?). It's a big problem for me as far as fair gameplay goes.

[Russ]

I have all of my scouts scouting nations. I'm completely dominating without trading, drafting well, or signing free agents.

[sfeldkamp]

I have all my scouts scouting nations. I've found only one player under 30 years of age and they were below average potential in every aspect.

How does the game decide if you find hidden players or what those players are capable of? Does it have to do with the talent level in the league already, or the talent level of your team? Or am I just unlucky?

[zukes]

I have only found a couple young guys, only one worth signing. I have had at least 2, usually 3, scouts scouring nations. Generally, I leave them in a nation until they find someone. Sometimes it's quick, other times it takes 6 months.

[Curtis]

My experience was closer to sfeldkamp's. The guy I found after eighteen months of searching was only 21, but was under 25 in every rating except greed.

[sfeldkamp]

Does anyone know what the mechanics of this are though? Is it just random or is it a means of balancing the talent level in a league? My league has a ton of young talent, I thought maybe that's why I wasn't finding anything good in nation scouting...

[zukes]

Pretty sure it is completely random, other than you'll have a better chance unearthing someone from a "fair" or above country.

[Russ]

My scouting has been so successful I'm quite sure my AAA team could win any division in my MLB. This is my AAA team and I took over in 2062.

[jbone]

Russ and others,

Yes, thank you for highlighting the problem. Has anyone noticed the AI finding hidden players at all?

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by jbone

Russ and others,

Yes, thank you for highlighting the problem. Has anyone noticed the AI finding hidden players at all?

Oh the Ai will find hidden players. I have a problem with hidden foreign players being generated and signed by the AI despite disabling sign foreign players option and setting the generate foreign players at 0. I am at my wits end at trying to get a solution to this problem as I am trying to play out a fictional historical league beginning 1901 with no foreign players (pre-integration)

[Scott Vibert]

Disable the create and maintain hidden players option.

I believe this is impacted by the quality of the nation and the scouts involved.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Scott Vibert

Disable the create and maintain hidden players option.

I believe this is impacted by the quality of the nation and the scouts involved.

Thanks Scott but then I lose this feature and do not have it as my universe progress from historical to modern play.

Also, just for laughs I edited all nations (except US) to 0 population and baseball quality to non-existent and foreign players are still generated. So I am not sure that if this is impacted by the quality of the nations and scouts involved. (Scouts were turned off as well).

THis is a bug that I hope gets addressed in the next patch.

Otherwise the game is darn near perfect for me!

(BTW- I did post this issue in the tech forum over a month ago but did not get any resolution nor do I think it was TT'ed. I know the guys are backed up over there and Markus has understandbly took some time off. I am hoping that it gets included in the next patch.)

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

Thanks Scott but then I lose this feature and do not have it as my universe progress from historical to modern play.

This isn't a feature I've ever used, but are you sure this isn't something that can be turned on and off? I have no clue, but it might be editable at the same point other features, like free agency, become editable once a year.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

This isn't a feature I've ever used, but are you sure this isn't something that can be turned on and off? I have no clue, but it might be editable at the same point other features, like free agency, become editable once a year.

No, the create/maintain hidden players option can only be enabled/disabled at the creation of a new game.

I agree that it would be nice to have this option be editable like some of the other features in the game (i.e. free agency, etc.)

[injury log]

I find it too easy to find star prospects when scouting other countries- send scouts to Puerto Rico, Japan and Canada, wait two years, and you'll probably end up with five potential superstars. The quality of baseball in the nation is a crucial factor in determining the quality of players found, and it often takes a long time- often at least a year- before your scout finds anyone useful. International signing does, however, seem to be much improved since OOTP 2006- more prospects now, and fewer ML ready superstars.

In real life, stud international prospects aren't often unknown and discovered by a single team; there are bidding wars for 16 year old guys like Angel Villalona and Carlos Triunfel. It would be brilliant if the game could model this more accurately; a real life GM with $10m to spend needs to decide whether to gamble on a raw international sign or spend on an established ML free agent, and I wish I had to make these decisions in the game.

In any case, to keep the game fair as is, I impose a restriction on myself when scouting internationally- I only let myself sign prospects 18 years old or younger. This seems more realistic, since I'm only signing very raw players, and I don't end up with a boatload of uberprospects. International scouting is a lot of fun, so I don't want to disable it, and it does seem that other teams occasionally make international signings, which I didn't notice in OOTP 2006.

[jbone]

Ashante - yes, now your problem is very interesting... but didn't you already post another thread about that topic of yours?

injury log - only letting yourself sign prospect 18 or under is a very original idea.

Suggestions for proposed changes:
1. International Hidden players should be 18 or younger.
2. The AI SHOULD be more active in persuing players -finding them at a greater frequency.
3. In the long run, it would be great (and very exciting) if there were bidding wars for prospects.

You would certainly think that we might be able to get the second change in an upcoming patch, making the AI more active.

[injury log]

Originally Posted by jbone

Ashante - yes, now your problem is very interesting... but didn't you already post another thread about that topic of yours?

injury log - only letting yourself sign prospect 18 or under is a very original idea.

Suggestions for proposed changes:
1. International Hidden players should be 18 or younger.
2. The AI SHOULD be more active in persuing players -finding them at a greater frequency.
3. In the long run, it would be great (and very exciting) if there were bidding wars for prospects.

You would certainly think that we might be able to get the second change in an upcoming patch, making the AI more active.

I meant to reply to this a while ago, but jbone- awesome suggestions. If I can wordily suggest some slight modifications- I'd love it if international signing was closer to real life, and in my ideal OOTP world, it would work a bit like this:

1- International hidden players should mostly be very raw, 18 and under, with a small number of exceptions. As in real life, there should be an international signing period during the offseason (international players rarely sign midseason in MLB, and there are too many boring months in the offseason anyway!). Many, but not all, of the top international prospects should be 'public knowledge'; all teams should know they're out there and get a news message about it, just as everyone knew about Angel Villalona or Carlos Triunfel this past offseason. Some prospects, however, should only be discovered by sending scouts off to other countries, and would remain hidden to all teams except those that discover them during the season. I think it would be most fun to get a report just before the international sign period starts of all the players your scout has discovered in the country they've scouted- of course, other teams might discover these players too, so you might still not be able to sign them. A very small number of big league ready players should be available as well, known to all teams, preferably announced in a news message (there were, if I'm remembering all of them, only four international signs that made MLB this year- Hideki Okajima, Akinori Iwamura, Kei Igawa and Daisuke Matsuzaka, with Yuslan Herrera unlikely to make the majors). If the numbers of players of each type could be customized, so much the better.

2. If GMs could have complex personalities, it would be great if some teams were really active internationally, others weren't. As the game stands, it would be interesting if the degree of international scouting for each AI team was linked to the 'mode' the team is in- 'rebuilding' teams might do more than 'win now' teams (even if that isn't exactly how things are in MLB).

3. Ideally, scouting international prospects would be much more unreliable than scouting within one's league nation, and international prospects would demand potentially large signing bonuses that could lead to bidding wars. Modelling the Japanese posting system for all big international signs, prospects and otherwise, might be a lot of fun. As is, the only thing to do with excess money is buy free agents or trade for big contracts, but financial decisionmaking is more complex in real life- spend it on the draft, on international signs, on free agency, etc. Of course, I'd also like to see signing bonuses in the draft, with some players falling because of bonus demands, etc.

I'd never expect to see any of this in a patch (except, hopefully, item 2), but if any of these ideas can make it into a future version of the game, I'll be a happy customer (an even happier customer, I should say!).

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by injury log

I meant to reply to this a while ago, but jbone- awesome suggestions. If I can wordily suggest some slight modifications- I'd love it if international signing was closer to real life, and in my ideal OOTP world, it would work a bit like this:

1- International hidden players should mostly be very raw, 18 and under, with a small number of exceptions. As in real life, there should be an international signing period during the offseason (international players rarely sign midseason in MLB, and there are too many boring months in the offseason anyway!). Many, but not all, of the top international prospects should be 'public knowledge'; all teams should know they're out there and get a news message about it, just as everyone knew about Angel Villalona or Carlos Triunfel this past offseason. Some prospects, however, should only be discovered by sending scouts off to other countries, and would remain hidden to all teams except those that discover them during the season. I think it would be most fun to get a report just before the international sign period starts of all the players your scout has discovered in the country they've scouted- of course, other teams might discover these players too, so you might still not be able to sign them. A very small number of big league ready players should be available as well, known to all teams, preferably announced in a news message (there were, if I'm remembering all of them, only four international signs that made MLB this year- Hideki Okajima, Akinori Iwamura, Kei Igawa and Daisuke Matsuzaka, with Yuslan Herrera unlikely to make the majors). If the numbers of players of each type could be customized, so much the better.

2. If GMs could have complex personalities, it would be great if some teams were really active internationally, others weren't. As the game stands, it would be interesting if the degree of international scouting for each AI team was linked to the 'mode' the team is in- 'rebuilding' teams might do more than 'win now' teams (even if that isn't exactly how things are in MLB).

3. Ideally, scouting international prospects would be much more unreliable than scouting within one's league nation, and international prospects would demand potentially large signing bonuses that could lead to bidding wars. Modelling the Japanese posting system for all big international signs, prospects and otherwise, might be a lot of fun. As is, the only thing to do with excess money is buy free agents or trade for big contracts, but financial decisionmaking is more complex in real life- spend it on the draft, on international signs, on free agency, etc. Of course, I'd also like to see signing bonuses in the draft, with some players falling because of bonus demands, etc.

I'd never expect to see any of this in a patch (except, hopefully, item 2), but if any of these ideas can make it into a future version of the game, I'll be a happy customer (an even happier customer, I should say!).

Good comments IL!

[megamanmatt]

Originally Posted by injury log

I meant to reply to this a while ago, but jbone- awesome suggestions. If I can wordily suggest some slight modifications- I'd love it if international signing was closer to real life, and in my ideal OOTP world, it would work a bit like this:

1- International hidden players should mostly be very raw, 18 and under, with a small number of exceptions. As in real life, there should be an international signing period during the offseason (international players rarely sign midseason in MLB, and there are too many boring months in the offseason anyway!). Many, but not all, of the top international prospects should be 'public knowledge'; all teams should know they're out there and get a news message about it, just as everyone knew about Angel Villalona or Carlos Triunfel this past offseason. Some prospects, however, should only be discovered by sending scouts off to other countries, and would remain hidden to all teams except those that discover them during the season. I think it would be most fun to get a report just before the international sign period starts of all the players your scout has discovered in the country they've scouted- of course, other teams might discover these players too, so you might still not be able to sign them. A very small number of big league ready players should be available as well, known to all teams, preferably announced in a news message (there were, if I'm remembering all of them, only four international signs that made MLB this year- Hideki Okajima, Akinori Iwamura, Kei Igawa and Daisuke Matsuzaka, with Yuslan Herrera unlikely to make the majors). If the numbers of players of each type could be customized, so much the better.

2. If GMs could have complex personalities, it would be great if some teams were really active internationally, others weren't. As the game stands, it would be interesting if the degree of international scouting for each AI team was linked to the 'mode' the team is in- 'rebuilding' teams might do more than 'win now' teams (even if that isn't exactly how things are in MLB).

3. Ideally, scouting international prospects would be much more unreliable than scouting within one's league nation, and international prospects would demand potentially large signing bonuses that could lead to bidding wars. Modelling the Japanese posting system for all big international signs, prospects and otherwise, might be a lot of fun. As is, the only thing to do with excess money is buy free agents or trade for big contracts, but financial decisionmaking is more complex in real life- spend it on the draft, on international signs, on free agency, etc. Of course, I'd also like to see signing bonuses in the draft, with some players falling because of bonus demands, etc.

I'd never expect to see any of this in a patch (except, hopefully, item 2), but if any of these ideas can make it into a future version of the game, I'll be a happy customer (an even happier customer, I should say!).

Yeah I'm incredibly surprised cause most of the time I am immediately against anything that comes up on this board but my god, this almost brought a tear to my eye and I can't help but agree.... and I'm not even drunk yet.