Weather

perez24 · 02-15-2014, 08:06 PM

The weather effects are nice and add a level of complexity when there's a rain delay early in the game.

Any chance there will be actual rainouts? I've heard in the past that it's a nightmare from a programming perspective...and I'm sure it is...it's just that it would be a nice touch.

Fyrestorm3 · 02-16-2014, 01:31 AM

It's not so much the programming of the rainouts themselves, but of re-scheduling the game. For rainouts, it's easy. For every "minute" the rain delay lasts, there's an increasing chance of the game ending then and there. But then you have to get the game to correctly schedule a makeup game. Easiest situation, you have the teams play a doubleheader the next day (even though OOTP has immense trouble with doubleheaders as it is). But what if it's the final game of the series, or the last game they play against each other in the season? Or what if it happens in the playoffs? The game would have to search through the remaining schedule, identify all possible makeup dates, including mutual offdays, and pick a proper one. If there's no possible makeup dates, the game would have to be programmed to wait until the end of the season and then determine if the game needs to be made up at all. Also, you'd have to get the program to recognize whether or not a makeup game is even necessary based on the game's inning. There's so many variables.

It's simply a logistical hell, and I don't fault the devs for staying far, far away from this feature. Would it be nice? Yes. But I sincerely doubt it will be implemented any time soon.

Kobeck · 02-16-2014, 03:13 AM

thinking while typing here.

30ish teams in a league and what 180 days in a season

thats a grid 30*180 which is 5400 season dates

I really dont see how checking for matching appropiate dates among the 2 significant colums would be such a huge deal. If there are no matches then do as stated above and play game on day 181 if it impacts the POs. Otherwise forget about making it up.

honestly the only issue would be if the game impacts the POs. Even then I just dont see this as anything more than a limited number of 'IF THEN' situations.

Sweed · 02-16-2014, 10:32 AM

I agree with Fyrestorm3 and Markus has even stated that reschedule is the issue that makes this one hard to add. I would guess a lot of coding would be needed to have a feature that would be used how many times during a typical season?

One idea that could alleviate the reschedule issue could be to flag the final game of any series to not allow rainouts and then allow them in the other two or three games. This would give OOTP an "easy" way to have an opportunity to schedule a doubleheader on the first possible "next game day". The problem comes when games are rained out on consecutive days. Nobody is going to want a tripleheader so we're back to OOTP having to come up with an appropriate day to makeup the game. Could series be flagged to allow only one rainout per? Would there be complaints that rainouts are limited to one per series and "get away day games" can't be rained out? Or would having the possibility of having rainouts in 1 game per series be enough to add that bit of reality that the OP is asking for?

If rainouts were added, like many other things, make it optional so I can turn it off. It's not that I wouldn't like them but I would be afraid of side affects. OOTP's issues with doubleheaders would need to be cleaned up so they are 100% reliable (to be fair I've never scheduled one but have read many posts that have commented on them).

Somewhat related to having the possibility of rainouts. I think we would also need something that I have always wanted in OOTP and that is pregame weather forecasts. Right now when you play out a game you get the weather report just before the first pitch after lineups and pitchers are decided. How about having that info before the game? Of course now the AI has to be "taught" to deal with how to adjust when heavy rain is a high possibility. Do hold back your #1 SP because heavy rain is almost a certainty even though mentally he is ready to pitch today? Does this affect his mood (probably be easier not to open this can of worms)? More important does the AI consider holding back players from this game?

Kobeck brings up a fair point on the limited number of "if thens" and I suppose if OOTP only did one real world MLB setup it might be "easier" not easy to cover all of the if-thens. But OOTP allows us to create unlimited types of leagues all with different schedules and playoff structures and OOTP would have to be able to cover all of these types of leagues without issue or complaints would be coming in. v14 is having some issues with a real MLB setup now having multiple wildcards and having three or more teams tying for those spots. Now add in OOTP having to get in a makeup game from a rainout in July to a tie-breaking system that already has issues? I'm with Fyerstorm3 on this one it would become a logistical hell taking a ton of coding time with limited return\benefit on that coding time.

Kobeck · 02-16-2014, 04:57 PM

I like your idea of 1 per series. Adds the possibility of rain outs in a simplified way.

In reality MLB does all it can to get to that 4 1/2 inning mark and call it a game, at least once the game is started.

endgame · 02-16-2014, 05:04 PM

I like the idea of having them eventually incorporated. The minimalist in me would like to see it happen, then a popup of some sort detailing what necessary actions I needed to take in order to make the accomodation. I know it'd require more work on my end, but thinking it may enable front end coding that could eliminate all the additional work that might be necessary to make it an automatic function within the game.

BPS · 02-16-2014, 06:40 PM

Lots of complicated issues are involved in rainouts.

But I wonder if, from a programming point of view, if people are looking at the scheduling issue backwards. Everything involving the occurrence and rescheduling of rained out games can be determined before the season even starts.

That is, before the season starts a schedule is generated. The game then looks for days in which games can be made up. Perhaps a three game series occurs on August 1, 2, and 3 after which both teams have days off (on August 4). These two teams have a game scheduled earlier in a city (and day) in which a rainout plausibly occurs. Perhaps one of these games was on July 3. OOTP now knows that it can cause a rainout on July 3 which can then be made up on August 4. Therefore, even before the season starts OOTP knows the July 3 game will be rained out after, say, the 2nd inning. Before the July 3 game starts OOTP knows that will have to treat this game specially (for instance, it will know what to do with the data generated by the game, etc).

endgame · 02-16-2014, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BPS

Lots of complicated issues are involved in rainouts.

But I wonder if, from a programming point of view, if people are looking at the scheduling issue backwards. Everything involving the occurrence and rescheduling of rained out games can be determined before the season even starts.

That is, before the season starts a schedule is generated. The game then looks for days in which games can be made up. Perhaps a three game series occurs on August 1, 2, and 3 after which both teams have days off (on August 4). These two teams have a game scheduled earlier in a city (and day) in which a rainout plausibly occurs. Perhaps one of these games was on July 3. OOTP now knows that it can cause a rainout on July 3 which can then be made up on August 4. Therefore, even before the season starts OOTP knows the July 3 game will be rained out after, say, the 2nd inning. Before the July 3 game starts OOTP knows that will have to treat this game specially (for instance, it will know what to do with the data generated by the game, etc).

That's actually a good point.

Bluenoser · 02-16-2014, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BPS

Lots of complicated issues are involved in rainouts.

But I wonder if, from a programming point of view, if people are looking at the scheduling issue backwards. Everything involving the occurrence and rescheduling of rained out games can be determined before the season even starts.

That is, before the season starts a schedule is generated. The game then looks for days in which games can be made up. Perhaps a three game series occurs on August 1, 2, and 3 after which both teams have days off (on August 4). These two teams have a game scheduled earlier in a city (and day) in which a rainout plausibly occurs. Perhaps one of these games was on July 3. OOTP now knows that it can cause a rainout on July 3 which can then be made up on August 4. Therefore, even before the season starts OOTP knows the July 3 game will be rained out after, say, the 2nd inning. Before the July 3 game starts OOTP knows that will have to treat this game specially (for instance, it will know what to do with the data generated by the game, etc).

Knowing before the season even starts what days there's going to be rainouts is even more unrealistic than not having them at all.

endgame · 02-16-2014, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Knowing before the season even starts what days there's going to be rainouts is even more unrealistic than not having them at all.

Well that would be, but I think he was primarily suggesting that make up days be decided as set asides.

BPS · 02-16-2014, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Knowing before the season even starts what days there's going to be rainouts is even more unrealistic than not having them at all.

I guess I needed to make things more explicit: the OOTP GAME would know when the rainouts will occur (with 100% certainty) before the season started, but the OOTP PLAYER would not be told, ahead of time, when rainouts would happen. OOTP would hide this information until the ballgame was actually rained out. But because everything was already planned by OOTP ahead of time (the day of the rainout and the day of the rescheduled game) it would be simple to reschedule the game. The rescheduled game would not appear on the schedule (the OOTP player sees) until the game was rained out.

Bluenoser · 02-16-2014, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BPS

I guess I needed to make things more explicit: the OOTP GAME would know when the rainouts will occur (with 100% certainty) before the season started, but the OOTP PLAYER would not be told when rainouts would happen ahead of time. OOTP would hide this information until the ballgame was actually rained out. But because everything was already planned ahead of time (the day of the rainout and the day of the rescheduled game) it would be simple to reschedule the game.

Doesn't matter - it's not random whether the game or the player knows.

If they can't be done correctly, 100% random, then don't have them at all.

BPS · 02-16-2014, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Doesn't matter - it's not random whether the game or the player knows.

If they can't be done correctly, 100% random, then don't have them at all.

Why is it more "correct" that the game doesn't know the days of rainouts ahead of time? The OOTP game knows lots of stuff the OOTP player doesn't know.

Bluenoser · 02-16-2014, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BPS

Why is it more "correct" that the game doesn't know the days of rainouts ahead of time? The OOTP game knows lots of stuff the OOTP player doesn't know.

Right, it "knows" lots of things. It also does some things randomly to keep realism.

Injuries aren't predetermined, they're programmed to occur randomly based on certain criteria. The game doesn't determine before the season begins who's going to get injured and on what day. - Realistic.

Rainouts should also be random, based on certain criteria that is already in the game. - Realistic.

We can nitpick all day about what the game "knows" and doesn't "know".

endgame · 02-16-2014, 09:18 PM

Well, I was okay with assigning predetermined makeup days. I wouldn't be on board with assigned rainouts. That's a different matter.

BPS · 02-16-2014, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Right, it "knows" lots of things. It also does things randomly to keep realism.

Injuries aren't predetermined, they're programmed to occur randomly based on certain criteria. The game doesn't determine before the season begins who's going to get injured and on what day. - Realistic.

Rainouts should also be random based on certain criteria that is already in the game. - Realistic.

We can nitpick all day about what the game "knows" and doesn't "know".

Some people want rainouts but they believe the rescheduling problem is difficult. I presented a solution making the rescheduling a trivial problem.

In any case, I'm not sure your requirement, "random events SHOULD only be determined the instant before they happen," is a necessary requirement for a good game experience. Why should that really matter?

bwburke94 · 02-16-2014, 09:39 PM

I am opposed to the idea of mid-game rainouts, due to the complexity of rainout rules and the potential for stats to be wiped out. Determining rainouts before the game starts is much more reasonable from a programming perspective.

BPS · 02-16-2014, 10:06 PM

Consider off-season injuries. One way to implement them is that every single day some process is set in motion to determine who is injured that day. Alternatively, OOTP runs some process once at the beginning of the off-season to determine who will get injured in the off-season and then holds off revealing that injury to the OOTP player until the appropriate day (which might be a month later).

Does it really matter to the OOTP player which process is used? No matter which is used, the experience is the same: one day...apparently random...it is revealed to the OOTP player than an off-season injury "occurred that day" and it didn't really matter when the die was actually thrown. All that matters is the illusion that the injury "actually happened that day." And, suppose the one-time determination of injuries is a speedier way to do things. Would we not prefer the speedier way to do things if the experience is the same?

tomwolf2008 · 02-16-2014, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BPS

Consider off-season injuries. One way to implement them is that every single day some process is set in motion to determine who is injured that day. Alternatively, OOTP runs some process once at the beginning of the off-season to determine who will get injured in the off-season and then holds off revealing that injury to the OOTP player until the appropriate day (which might be a month later).

Does it really matter to the OOTP player which process is used? No matter which is used, the experience is the same: one day...apparently random...it is revealed to the OOTP player than an off-season injury "occurred that day" and it didn't really matter when the die was actually thrown. All that matters is the illusion that the injury "actually happened that day." And, suppose the one-time determination of injuries is a speedier way to do things. Would we not prefer the speedier way to do things if the experience is the same?

Actually it does matter to me (and it seems that it matters to Bluenoser too)

I don't want the game to pre-determined say "Player A will injured on this day of the season" because in reality, there are guys that just doesn't get injured for a long time (see Cal Ripken Jr or Lou Gehrig), but even more importantly if the process is a pre-determined pattern instead of random occurence, then overtime human player can figure out the pattern and used it as their advantage.

So yes, if some event is random in the real life, I would want the event random in the game as well.

BPS · 02-17-2014, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomwolf2008

Actually it does matter to me (and it seems that it matters to Bluenoser too)

I don't want the game to pre-determined say "Player A will injured on this day of the season" because in reality, there are guys that just doesn't get injured for a long time (see Cal Ripken Jr or Lou Gehrig), but even more importantly if the process is a pre-determined pattern instead of random occurence, then overtime human player can figure out the pattern and used it as their advantage.

So yes, if some event is random in the real life, I would want the event random in the game as well.

If someone wanted to implement rainouts in the way I proposed, it could be made as "realistic" (and seemingly random) as anything else in the game.

02-16-2014, 10:32 AM	#4
Sweed Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Iowa Posts: 6,732	I agree with Fyrestorm3 and Markus has even stated that reschedule is the issue that makes this one hard to add. I would guess a lot of coding would be needed to have a feature that would be used how many times during a typical season? One idea that could alleviate the reschedule issue could be to flag the final game of any series to not allow rainouts and then allow them in the other two or three games. This would give OOTP an "easy" way to have an opportunity to schedule a doubleheader on the first possible "next game day". The problem comes when games are rained out on consecutive days. Nobody is going to want a tripleheader so we're back to OOTP having to come up with an appropriate day to makeup the game. Could series be flagged to allow only one rainout per? Would there be complaints that rainouts are limited to one per series and "get away day games" can't be rained out? Or would having the possibility of having rainouts in 1 game per series be enough to add that bit of reality that the OP is asking for? If rainouts were added, like many other things, make it optional so I can turn it off. It's not that I wouldn't like them but I would be afraid of side affects. OOTP's issues with doubleheaders would need to be cleaned up so they are 100% reliable (to be fair I've never scheduled one but have read many posts that have commented on them). Somewhat related to having the possibility of rainouts. I think we would also need something that I have always wanted in OOTP and that is pregame weather forecasts. Right now when you play out a game you get the weather report just before the first pitch after lineups and pitchers are decided. How about having that info before the game? Of course now the AI has to be "taught" to deal with how to adjust when heavy rain is a high possibility. Do hold back your #1 SP because heavy rain is almost a certainty even though mentally he is ready to pitch today? Does this affect his mood (probably be easier not to open this can of worms)? More important does the AI consider holding back players from this game? Kobeck brings up a fair point on the limited number of "if thens" and I suppose if OOTP only did one real world MLB setup it might be "easier" not easy to cover all of the if-thens. But OOTP allows us to create unlimited types of leagues all with different schedules and playoff structures and OOTP would have to be able to cover all of these types of leagues without issue or complaints would be coming in. v14 is having some issues with a real MLB setup now having multiple wildcards and having three or more teams tying for those spots. Now add in OOTP having to get in a makeup game from a rainout in July to a tie-breaking system that already has issues? I'm with Fyerstorm3 on this one it would become a logistical hell taking a ton of coding time with limited return\benefit on that coding time. Last edited by Sweed; 02-16-2014 at 10:35 AM.

02-16-2014, 05:04 PM	#6
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,842	I like the idea of having them eventually incorporated. The minimalist in me would like to see it happen, then a popup of some sort detailing what necessary actions I needed to take in order to make the accomodation. I know it'd require more work on my end, but thinking it may enable front end coding that could eliminate all the additional work that might be necessary to make it an automatic function within the game. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

02-16-2014, 09:18 PM	#15
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,842	Well, I was okay with assigning predetermined makeup days. I wouldn't be on board with assigned rainouts. That's a different matter. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

02-15-2014, 08:06 PM	#1
perez24 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: various Posts: 200	Weather The weather effects are nice and add a level of complexity when there's a rain delay early in the game. Any chance there will be actual rainouts? I've heard in the past that it's a nightmare from a programming perspective...and I'm sure it is...it's just that it would be a nice touch.

02-16-2014, 01:31 AM	#2
Fyrestorm3 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Tampa Bay, Massachusetts Posts: 2,928	It's not so much the programming of the rainouts themselves, but of re-scheduling the game. For rainouts, it's easy. For every "minute" the rain delay lasts, there's an increasing chance of the game ending then and there. But then you have to get the game to correctly schedule a makeup game. Easiest situation, you have the teams play a doubleheader the next day (even though OOTP has immense trouble with doubleheaders as it is). But what if it's the final game of the series, or the last game they play against each other in the season? Or what if it happens in the playoffs? The game would have to search through the remaining schedule, identify all possible makeup dates, including mutual offdays, and pick a proper one. If there's no possible makeup dates, the game would have to be programmed to wait until the end of the season and then determine if the game needs to be made up at all. Also, you'd have to get the program to recognize whether or not a makeup game is even necessary based on the game's inning. There's so many variables. It's simply a logistical hell, and I don't fault the devs for staying far, far away from this feature. Would it be nice? Yes. But I sincerely doubt it will be implemented any time soon.

02-16-2014, 03:13 AM	#3
Kobeck Major Leagues Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 491	thinking while typing here. 30ish teams in a league and what 180 days in a season thats a grid 30*180 which is 5400 season dates I really dont see how checking for matching appropiate dates among the 2 significant colums would be such a huge deal. If there are no matches then do as stated above and play game on day 181 if it impacts the POs. Otherwise forget about making it up. honestly the only issue would be if the game impacts the POs. Even then I just dont see this as anything more than a limited number of 'IF THEN' situations.

02-16-2014, 04:57 PM	#5
Kobeck Major Leagues Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 491	I like your idea of 1 per series. Adds the possibility of rain outs in a simplified way. In reality MLB does all it can to get to that 4 1/2 inning mark and call it a game, at least once the game is started.

02-16-2014, 06:40 PM	#7
BPS All Star Reserve Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 717	Lots of complicated issues are involved in rainouts. But I wonder if, from a programming point of view, if people are looking at the scheduling issue backwards. Everything involving the occurrence and rescheduling of rained out games can be determined before the season even starts. That is, before the season starts a schedule is generated. The game then looks for days in which games can be made up. Perhaps a three game series occurs on August 1, 2, and 3 after which both teams have days off (on August 4). These two teams have a game scheduled earlier in a city (and day) in which a rainout plausibly occurs. Perhaps one of these games was on July 3. OOTP now knows that it can cause a rainout on July 3 which can then be made up on August 4. Therefore, even before the season starts OOTP knows the July 3 game will be rained out after, say, the 2nd inning. Before the July 3 game starts OOTP knows that will have to treat this game specially (for instance, it will know what to do with the data generated by the game, etc).

02-16-2014, 09:39 PM	#17
bwburke94 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Belchertown, MA, USA Posts: 4,507	I am opposed to the idea of mid-game rainouts, due to the complexity of rainout rules and the potential for stats to be wiped out. Determining rainouts before the game starts is much more reasonable from a programming perspective.

02-16-2014, 10:06 PM	#18
BPS All Star Reserve Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 717	Consider off-season injuries. One way to implement them is that every single day some process is set in motion to determine who is injured that day. Alternatively, OOTP runs some process once at the beginning of the off-season to determine who will get injured in the off-season and then holds off revealing that injury to the OOTP player until the appropriate day (which might be a month later). Does it really matter to the OOTP player which process is used? No matter which is used, the experience is the same: one day...apparently random...it is revealed to the OOTP player than an off-season injury "occurred that day" and it didn't really matter when the die was actually thrown. All that matters is the illusion that the injury "actually happened that day." And, suppose the one-time determination of injuries is a speedier way to do things. Would we not prefer the speedier way to do things if the experience is the same?