The "Realism" Factor

darkcloud4579 · 10-17-2007, 11:53 PM

We hear about it a lot, especially if you're a dynasty writer. I wonder what people's mechanisms for asserting a level of "realism" into solo play? What house rules or other mechanisms do you employ and what is "realism" to you?

darkcloud4579 · 10-18-2007, 12:06 AM

Also, I'm wondering the biggest contract you ever gave to a player.

1998 Yankees · 10-18-2007, 12:08 AM

This has the potential to be an outstanding thread, I think. Let me respond quickly before retiring for the night.

The one thing that comes to mind is that, as a solo player, I value realism over winning. That is, I will not take extraordinary steps to create a dyanasty that has me winning year after year. That is certainly not realistic and not what I am looking for in this game.

I like to win, of course, but I will ease up a bit if I find that I am doing so too easily. For example, I will pass up on a trade if I know it is too one-sided and I have had too many of those recently. Know what I mean?

zuty · 10-18-2007, 12:17 AM

I have two kinds of solo leagues I like to develop, both of which I write narratives for (perhaps I'm overly influenced by the likes of Mark Harris's books).

The first type is where I design my story ahead of time, and then generate the league to execute that design. I have one in the works now about a group of seven players who all come up through the minors together, and band together to form a championship dynasty -- this all amidst a world where money dictates everything, and free agency is one breath away from destroying baseball's economy. These seven boys demonstrate how winning can be a better paycheck.

Of course, to make this possible, I have to go in as a commissioner and futz with the contracts and make sure that none of these players gets traded away, make sure that the ones who are supposed to be happy stay happy and so on. While it doesn't matter much whether they win or lose any particular game, I do make sure they win the ones they need to win for the story. Cheating from a gameplay point of view, yes, but absolutely crucial for the storytelling.

The other league I like is the kind where the games play out on their own -- I have little to do with anything. Except I'm the narrator. I'm the sports reporter, the beat writer. I see it happen and I make it into news. And then usually what I do is invent the world in which these games happen. Everything that isn't included in the gameplay, I justify with the narrative. I tend to follow the careers of individual players or managers in these leagues, and try to find that one guy who is going to be the Next Big Thing.

1998 Yankees · 10-18-2007, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zuty

I have two kinds of solo leagues I like to develop, both of which I write narratives for (perhaps I'm overly influenced by the likes of Mark Harris's books).

I like the "Band of Brothers" approach that you described, including the alterations needed to keep them together, but I stop short of making sure that they win. To me, it would be much more satisfying if they won together naturally, rather than by script. But your approach to realism is different than mine.

Your godlike approach ("I . . . invent the world . . .") in the second scenario is more to my liking in that events are allowed to unfold on their own. I would like to have more of an influence in that, however, other than just the role of observer. That is a big part of the game to me, of course, and realism and immersion depend on you following the league, or your universe, not just your team, but I do want to play as well!

So, your suggestions are interesting but not exactly to my liking. However, this is why this game is great. There are all different ways to play it and achieve that sense of realism and immersion that we are looking for in a baseball simulation.

darkcloud4579 · 10-18-2007, 01:49 PM

For me, I tend to employ a variety of scenarios. I do play God mode a lot, but that's largely due to my interest in wanting to "control the flow of traffic" in my leagues to varying degrees.

I too like that Band of Brothers approach. This is interesting.

I think the hardest thing I have is with "realism". I can rationalize all sorts of stuff, especially related to PC teams versus my own...but, it seems that other people have a far more rigid view of the way things work. But the way that the real world works is so defiant at times -- the Yankees not winning a title since 2000, the Rockies managing to get to the World Series, the '03 Marlins -- are examples of how things can be just crazy and so, I tend to love to see stories like that in my game and to this game's credit, this sort of stuff happens and there are SO many stats and things to pour over for years and years.

RchW · 10-18-2007, 08:18 PM

Realism is in the eye of the beholder. My solo league has good strong starting pitching, more complete games than current MLB. Bullpens are underused. Typically only the closer and one or two other pitchers get into a lot of games. It makes for interesting playoff games as any teams long and middle relief can be scary.

On the other side batters tend to have slightly higher averages and OPS, good gap power but lower HR in general. In 30 seasons I've had 31 50HR seasons. That includes multiple 50HR seasons by some players. Most HR hit in one season is 65 (and 64 by the same guy). I guess the better SP may have an effect on that.

I played around with speed, going from almost no SB to tons and settled back to something in the middle. Defense is left to the AI but on the team I control good defense will always get you a look.

What I like and find realistic is OOTP will go through mini surges in offense for 3-5 seasons. If you don't panic and muck around with the league totals too much it will find its way back.

What can I say. I thought I would have gone through several leagues by now. Luckily I got one right. Next up is a Fictional/Historical with expansion, but only if I have time.

skywalkr2 · 10-18-2007, 08:24 PM

What kills me about "realism" is aging mediocre position players asking for and getting huge contracts from the AI. I refuse to sign these guys... Another thing that kills the realism for me is a team in dead last place at the trade deadline that refuses to trade a good 39 yo player for prospects. They only ever want your mid twenties top line players... That just doesn't happen except in very rare cases.

Kelric · 10-18-2007, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skywalkr2

What kills me about "realism" is aging mediocre position players asking for and getting huge contracts from the AI. I refuse to sign these guys...

Because we all know that that never happens in Major League baseball.

ctorg · 10-19-2007, 10:00 AM

I'm a solo gamer only, and there have been various things I've done over the years to bring about realism. I've created a lot of artificial obstacles for myself, including injuring my own starting players at pivotal times to see how I get around it, trading good prospects for less that I could probably get, taking control of secondary teams and building them into monsters artificially by suping up ratings or allowing questionable trades on their behalf, etc. I've had real problems with being able to pummel the computer, so I've really brought down the level of detail regarding how much I know about player ratings.

What's an interesting discussion for me is what areas of the game are obstacles to creating a realistic universe.

One, to me, is somewhat in line with what skywalkr2 brought up. Real baseball has more diversity of needs than OOTP seems to. A team in contention desperately needs a starting 2B, for instance, and is willing to give up more than they otherwise would to get him, even taking on a declining old veteran's big salary. A team out of contention has a fire sale to restock the minors. These kinds of things don't seem to happen much. Despite the ability to set teams to Rebuild or Win Now, I don't get the sense that teams really have those goals in mind. I still see rebuilders trading prospects for overpaid big names and win-nowers inexplicably unloading players that can help them win now. Ideally, I'd like to feel like (even if it's not totally true) the AI has a game plan for making the team better. But it often feels like it just makes semi-random moves that don't really improve the teams under its control. The AI is very short term in its thinking. It won't do things like pick up a prospect SS in a trade with the intention of having him replace the aging current SS in two years. It won't look for good ways of unloading players before their decline kicks in. Real strategy doesn't really exist.

So, back to the point of this thread, what I will often do for the sake of realism is take over multiple teams in a sort of informal way. That is, I leave them on AI control but make occasional moves on their behalf to make them better. In my current league, I control the Brooklyn team, but I have a sort of secondary interest in the Phoenix and Oakland teams and have built them into perennial contenders so that my actual team has a real challenge when it makes its inevitable playoff appearances.

1998 Yankees · 10-19-2007, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

But the way that the real world works is so defiant at times -- the Yankees not winning a title since 2000, the Rockies managing to get to the World Series, the '03 Marlins -- are examples of how things can be just crazy and so, I tend to love to see stories like that in my game and to this game's credit, this sort of stuff happens.

This, by the way, brings up a thought that I should really post in the "I can't win in the playoffs" thread but I am too lazy (or embarrassed) to dig it up and do so.

The playoffs are a crapshoot. You bring up some good examples of that this year; how about the Cardinals from last year? Good pitchers suddenly tanking under playoff pressure, well see Chien-Ming Wang's performances versus the Indians.

So, this is realism. I abandon my former position on this matter accordingly.

1998 Yankees · 10-19-2007, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RchW

Realism is in the eye of the beholder. My solo league has good strong starting pitching, more complete games than current MLB. Bullpens are underused. Typically only the closer and one or two other pitchers get into a lot of games. It makes for interesting playoff games as any teams long and middle relief can be scary.

This is an interesting point. I tend to do the same thing; I like complete games and I do not like taking out pitchers who are dominating games because they hit some artificial pitch count.

However, this is not totally realistic in my solo fictional leagues that begin in the 21st century. I guess as long as I am satisfied, I let this and other details slide a bit. So, realism is certainly not absolute and is indeed "in the eye of the beholder."

1998 Yankees · 10-19-2007, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kelric

Because we all know that that never happens in Major League baseball.

I'm just hoping it does not happen to the Yankees again for a while.

1998 Yankees · 10-19-2007, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ctorg

So, back to the point of this thread, what I will often do for the sake of realism is take over multiple teams in a sort of informal way. That is, I leave them on AI control but make occasional moves on their behalf to make them better. In my current league, I control the Brooklyn team, but I have a sort of secondary interest in the Phoenix and Oakland teams and have built them into perennial contenders so that my actual team has a real challenge when it makes its inevitable playoff appearances.

I've done this as well, take over a team or two (acting as commissioner), noodle around a bit to improve things, then rejoin my mates, sounding an imaginary warning about how teams X & Y look to be "up and coming this year," heh.

darkcloud4579 · 10-19-2007, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ctorg

I'm a solo gamer only.

So, back to the point of this thread, what I will often do for the sake of realism is take over multiple teams in a sort of informal way. That is, I leave them on AI control but make occasional moves on their behalf to make them better. In my current league, I control the Brooklyn team, but I have a sort of secondary interest in the Phoenix and Oakland teams and have built them into perennial contenders so that my actual team has a real challenge when it makes its inevitable playoff appearances.

I do a lot of the same thing and have always found myself having to intervene in "God" mode to get the league more balanced and I will say that this version better than past ones, has done a great job to make sure that even if you go through, spend the most money and make the playoffs, that you're not assured to win the title year in and year out. I love that "Yankee glitch" to make sure that the game isn't so predictable so as to be ridiculous.

I've seen teams that were just not very good peak at the right time and win it all and I've seen teams that are good, but not great, win it all too.

I've found that the balance is in some sort of revenue sharing model that basically keeps all of the teams in the race, without it getting completely ridiculous and almost not making it matter.

I like that 1-star players can be solid contributors on a team and that it's not all about overpaying for star talent and that there seems to be a correlation between assembling key players in key spots and truly going out as a GM and saying, "forget ratings and stars, what do I REALLY need this off-season?" And letting player performance dictate to you what you're gonna do.

It's an evolutionary process for my part, but I'm eventually trying to get more into the model of armchair GMing where I GM as if I were a fan at home given the chance to run a team and thus, not having access to scouting reports, just stats.

For me, it's all about building a team you connect with and being able to as time goes on, to feel like you really built something, rather than just getting in, having a free agent buffet and going nuts.

So I'm having fun with it and this is the first OOTP for me where I look and go, "I wonder what they'll do next year..." as if I'm afraid something I really like will get flubbed up.

But I liked all of the stuff you said about teams not having different GM models or "planning for the future." It would be a FANTASTIC if you could almost see a team preparing in that way and trying to build. Or teams going into "fire sale" mode. It would really enhance the solo experience -- I too, only play solo -- if the game did more of that.

ctorg · 10-19-2007, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

I do a lot of the same thing and have always found myself having to intervene in "God" mode to get the league more balanced and I will say that this version better than past ones, has done a great job to make sure that even if you go through, spend the most money and make the playoffs, that you're not assured to win the title year in and year out. I love that "Yankee glitch" to make sure that the game isn't so predictable so as to be ridiculous.

In the last postseason I had, the team that won it all finished a whopping 14 games better than its pythagorean record. Some teams just get very lucky.

neojonas · 10-19-2007, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

It would be a FANTASTIC if you could almost see a team preparing in that way and trying to build. Or teams going into "fire sale" mode. It would really enhance the solo experience

I agree! This would add a lot to the game.

RchW · 10-19-2007, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

This, by the way, brings up a thought that I should really post in the "I can't win in the playoffs" thread but I am too lazy (or embarrassed) to dig it up and do so.

The playoffs are a crapshoot. You bring up some good examples of that this year; how about the Cardinals from last year? Good pitchers suddenly tanking under playoff pressure, well see Chien-Ming Wang's performances versus the Indians.

So, this is realism. I abandon my former position on this matter accordingly.

Oh come on, confession is good for the soul (some people believe

). I've given my mea culpas (or is it mea culpi) in that thread already.

I thought about OOTP playoffs every time I watched the Rockies this month.

1998 Yankees · 10-19-2007, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RchW

Oh come on, confession is good for the soul (some people believe

). I've given my mea culpas (or is it mea culpi) in that thread already.

I thought about OOTP playoffs every time I watched the Rockies this month.

Oh, all right. Here:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...&postcount=123

GoNats2008 · 10-19-2007, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

What is "realism" to you?

This is a deep question... and one where I'll pitch in my two cents...

For me it's about the mental challenge first. Am I overcoming the depth of challenge that a real manager would face? Are you juggling the same level of obstacles... the mental gymnastics... whatever you'd call it. I've played a ton of wargames and have always enjoyed those that gave me a glimpse into what the real person whose shoes I am virtually stepping into went through.

I remember the original Silent Service sub game. The graphics were primitive by today's standards, but I still remember the challenge of bringing down a ship and evading destroyers. I never watched Das Boot the same way after that. Same thing's true after playing OOTP. For me it's that panicky feeling you get in the 6th on a fading pitcher... 1 GB in the standings... tired bullpen... ace with a hernia... dead batting... trying to scratch out of AA to get a better gig.... The other night I shouted repeatedly at the monitor when a pitcher crashed and burned (taking my playoff chances with him). That's realism.

Secondly... I need the depth of experience, but I still want to squelch the dull things... whatever those dull things are *to me*. This is where OOTP does a really (really) good job. I tend to use the "Half Inning" button on pitchers early on when I KNOW that I want them to go the distance no matter what. I'm very thankful that the ENTER <ENTER>key does a nice job of skipping dull or low impact at bats. That ain't realism, but I couldn't play it any other way!

-GoNats2008!
"Torii Hunter's New Home?<?>"

10-17-2007, 11:53 PM	#1
darkcloud4579 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 8,709	The "Realism" Factor We hear about it a lot, especially if you're a dynasty writer. I wonder what people's mechanisms for asserting a level of "realism" into solo play? What house rules or other mechanisms do you employ and what is "realism" to you? __________________ ------ My Mods OOTP Advanced Stats & DFS Suite Managerial Strategy Pack Competitive Balance Tax Calculator Major League Women's Baseball (OOTP24) quickstart Indian Premier League \| 300+ years of baseball quickstart \| Expatriate League quickstart \| Off-Field Injuries Update \| Women's Name File for OOTP \| ---- Dynasty classics: Centurion comes to OOTP5 \| DC Moneyball Dynasty (2004)

10-18-2007, 12:06 AM	#2
darkcloud4579 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 8,709	Also, I'm wondering the biggest contract you ever gave to a player. __________________ ------ My Mods OOTP Advanced Stats & DFS Suite Managerial Strategy Pack Competitive Balance Tax Calculator Major League Women's Baseball (OOTP24) quickstart Indian Premier League \| 300+ years of baseball quickstart \| Expatriate League quickstart \| Off-Field Injuries Update \| Women's Name File for OOTP \| ---- Dynasty classics: Centurion comes to OOTP5 \| DC Moneyball Dynasty (2004)

10-18-2007, 01:49 PM	#6
darkcloud4579 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 8,709	For me, I tend to employ a variety of scenarios. I do play God mode a lot, but that's largely due to my interest in wanting to "control the flow of traffic" in my leagues to varying degrees. I too like that Band of Brothers approach. This is interesting. I think the hardest thing I have is with "realism". I can rationalize all sorts of stuff, especially related to PC teams versus my own...but, it seems that other people have a far more rigid view of the way things work. But the way that the real world works is so defiant at times -- the Yankees not winning a title since 2000, the Rockies managing to get to the World Series, the '03 Marlins -- are examples of how things can be just crazy and so, I tend to love to see stories like that in my game and to this game's credit, this sort of stuff happens and there are SO many stats and things to pour over for years and years. __________________ ------ My Mods OOTP Advanced Stats & DFS Suite Managerial Strategy Pack Competitive Balance Tax Calculator Major League Women's Baseball (OOTP24) quickstart Indian Premier League \| 300+ years of baseball quickstart \| Expatriate League quickstart \| Off-Field Injuries Update \| Women's Name File for OOTP \| ---- Dynasty classics: Centurion comes to OOTP5 \| DC Moneyball Dynasty (2004)

10-18-2007, 08:18 PM	#7
RchW Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Toronto ON by way of Glasgow UK Posts: 15,629	Realism is in the eye of the beholder. My solo league has good strong starting pitching, more complete games than current MLB. Bullpens are underused. Typically only the closer and one or two other pitchers get into a lot of games. It makes for interesting playoff games as any teams long and middle relief can be scary. On the other side batters tend to have slightly higher averages and OPS, good gap power but lower HR in general. In 30 seasons I've had 31 50HR seasons. That includes multiple 50HR seasons by some players. Most HR hit in one season is 65 (and 64 by the same guy). I guess the better SP may have an effect on that. I played around with speed, going from almost no SB to tons and settled back to something in the middle. Defense is left to the AI but on the team I control good defense will always get you a look. What I like and find realistic is OOTP will go through mini surges in offense for 3-5 seasons. If you don't panic and muck around with the league totals too much it will find its way back. What can I say. I thought I would have gone through several leagues by now. Luckily I got one right. Next up is a Fictional/Historical with expansion, but only if I have time. __________________ Cheers RichW If you’re looking for a good cause to donate money to please consider a Donation to Parkinson’s Canada. It may help me have a better future and if not me, someone else. Thanks. “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” Frank Wilhoit

10-19-2007, 10:00 AM	#10
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	I'm a solo gamer only, and there have been various things I've done over the years to bring about realism. I've created a lot of artificial obstacles for myself, including injuring my own starting players at pivotal times to see how I get around it, trading good prospects for less that I could probably get, taking control of secondary teams and building them into monsters artificially by suping up ratings or allowing questionable trades on their behalf, etc. I've had real problems with being able to pummel the computer, so I've really brought down the level of detail regarding how much I know about player ratings. What's an interesting discussion for me is what areas of the game are obstacles to creating a realistic universe. One, to me, is somewhat in line with what skywalkr2 brought up. Real baseball has more diversity of needs than OOTP seems to. A team in contention desperately needs a starting 2B, for instance, and is willing to give up more than they otherwise would to get him, even taking on a declining old veteran's big salary. A team out of contention has a fire sale to restock the minors. These kinds of things don't seem to happen much. Despite the ability to set teams to Rebuild or Win Now, I don't get the sense that teams really have those goals in mind. I still see rebuilders trading prospects for overpaid big names and win-nowers inexplicably unloading players that can help them win now. Ideally, I'd like to feel like (even if it's not totally true) the AI has a game plan for making the team better. But it often feels like it just makes semi-random moves that don't really improve the teams under its control. The AI is very short term in its thinking. It won't do things like pick up a prospect SS in a trade with the intention of having him replace the aging current SS in two years. It won't look for good ways of unloading players before their decline kicks in. Real strategy doesn't really exist. So, back to the point of this thread, what I will often do for the sake of realism is take over multiple teams in a sort of informal way. That is, I leave them on AI control but make occasional moves on their behalf to make them better. In my current league, I control the Brooklyn team, but I have a sort of secondary interest in the Phoenix and Oakland teams and have built them into perennial contenders so that my actual team has a real challenge when it makes its inevitable playoff appearances. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

10-18-2007, 12:08 AM	#3
1998 Yankees Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yankee Stadium, back in 1998. Posts: 8,645	This has the potential to be an outstanding thread, I think. Let me respond quickly before retiring for the night. The one thing that comes to mind is that, as a solo player, I value realism over winning. That is, I will not take extraordinary steps to create a dyanasty that has me winning year after year. That is certainly not realistic and not what I am looking for in this game. I like to win, of course, but I will ease up a bit if I find that I am doing so too easily. For example, I will pass up on a trade if I know it is too one-sided and I have had too many of those recently. Know what I mean?

10-18-2007, 12:17 AM	#4
zuty Minors (Double A) Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 173	I have two kinds of solo leagues I like to develop, both of which I write narratives for (perhaps I'm overly influenced by the likes of Mark Harris's books). The first type is where I design my story ahead of time, and then generate the league to execute that design. I have one in the works now about a group of seven players who all come up through the minors together, and band together to form a championship dynasty -- this all amidst a world where money dictates everything, and free agency is one breath away from destroying baseball's economy. These seven boys demonstrate how winning can be a better paycheck. Of course, to make this possible, I have to go in as a commissioner and futz with the contracts and make sure that none of these players gets traded away, make sure that the ones who are supposed to be happy stay happy and so on. While it doesn't matter much whether they win or lose any particular game, I do make sure they win the ones they need to win for the story. Cheating from a gameplay point of view, yes, but absolutely crucial for the storytelling. The other league I like is the kind where the games play out on their own -- I have little to do with anything. Except I'm the narrator. I'm the sports reporter, the beat writer. I see it happen and I make it into news. And then usually what I do is invent the world in which these games happen. Everything that isn't included in the gameplay, I justify with the narrative. I tend to follow the careers of individual players or managers in these leagues, and try to find that one guy who is going to be the Next Big Thing.

10-18-2007, 08:24 PM	#8
skywalkr2 Major Leagues Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: St Louis, MO Posts: 438	What kills me about "realism" is aging mediocre position players asking for and getting huge contracts from the AI. I refuse to sign these guys... Another thing that kills the realism for me is a team in dead last place at the trade deadline that refuses to trade a good 39 yo player for prospects. They only ever want your mid twenties top line players... That just doesn't happen except in very rare cases.