Trade Difficulty

[AlpineSK]

I decided to try the game on Challenge Mode and the trade difficulty is locked in as "hard." When I look at trade offers and what teams ask for, it still, as with previous versions, feels like all that "hard" means is the AI over-values its players and asks for the moon and the stars for most trades.

For example: I shopped around Chris Sale, and did not get a single offer from any team for any player valued at over 4 stars. The Blue Jays even saw fit to offer me 3 star J.A. Happ. Dropping the difficulty to average almost doubled the number of offers that I received, and also increased the quality of those offers. I was really hoping for a few steps forward in trade logic, but I'm just not feeling a difference with 17.

Am I alone here?

[Airdrop01]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

I decided to try the game on Challenge Mode and the trade difficulty is locked in as "hard." When I look at trade offers and what teams ask for, it still, as with previous versions, feels like all that "hard" means is the AI over-values its players and asks for the moon and the stars for most trades.

For example: I shopped around Chris Sale, and did not get a single offer from any team for any player valued at over 4 stars. The Blue Jays even saw fit to offer me 3 star J.A. Happ. Dropping the difficulty to average almost doubled the number of offers that I received, and also increased the quality of those offers. I was really hoping for a few steps forward in trade logic, but I'm just not feeling a difference with 17.

Am I alone here?

Well, it is "Challenge Mode." I like it because I'll tell you what, it is so easy to build a team by trading with the AI on normal. I think it's advanced quite a bit. I mean, we can now pay salaries as part of trades (think David Justice in Momeyball). And honestly, Sale is a bit of a putz bro!

[Orcin]

Hard is supposed to be harder than Average.

[Déjà Bru]

No, you are not alone. Two thoughts:

• Hard is supposed to be hard, as Orcin said. Many players view Average as too easy. Personally, I am on the cusp. I like Average but I know Hard is what I should be using to challenge myself.
• You cannot judge some settings in this game by looking at how it handles these facsimiles of real players. YOU know the relative values of Chris Sale and J.A. Happ, but the game is designed to simulate the "fog of war" of sometimes inaccurate scout ratings and GM assessments. I am used to this because I usually play fictional.

[Airdrop01]

Also, Sale is a cancer.

PS- Did I mention I really don't like Sale?

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Hard is supposed to be harder than Average.

You're right it is supposed to be "hard" but it just seems like the way players are being valued is the only thing that increases, regardless of what a team's defined mission is.

Take a look at my other post about GM Trade Settings. I think that might be the root of the problem.

[rjl518]

even on HARD I get some pretty good offers...that I don't think the other team would make.

[Airdrop01]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

You're right it is supposed to be "hard" but it just seems like the way players are being valued is the only thing that increases, regardless of what a team's defined mission is.

Take a look at my other post about GM Trade Settings. I think that might be the root of the problem.

That's a good point. I am not smart enough to know how to fix it but I am sure they must try. The salary retention thing is cool. But I get what you're saying. It doesn't seem as if the win now or rebuild has a real impact.

But....

If there was an "intentionally trying to ruin team" I bet that team would give you Ted Williams reincarnated for Sale.

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by Airdrop01

That's a good point. I am not smart enough to know how to fix it but I am sure they must try. The salary retention thing is cool. But I get what you're saying. It doesn't seem as if the win now or rebuild has a real impact.

But....

If there was an "intentionally trying to ruin team" I bet that team would give you Ted Williams reincarnated for Sale.

Boy oh boy! Do you want some salt with your Deep Dish Pizza?!

But seriously, I guess my gripe is I havent seen a lot of improvement in recent years in the trade engine. I think that the GM strategy/trade strategy sliders, which I dont remember seeing before although I didnt play 17 all that much, are a step in the right direction.

I guess I figured that they would all be preset.

[Airdrop01]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

Boy oh boy! Do you want some salt with your Deep Dish Pizza?!

.

That's awesome! Love it! I wish I could thank you 100x,

But actually I'm a Royals fan. I genuinely don't like Sale. I wish the White Sox would've kept him.

[Airdrop01]

You'll like this: one of my employees at work is Steve Crawford's kid. He's a huge Red Sox fan so about once a week I go by his office and ask him if he heard about Sale's latest issue, or about how David Price's elbow exploded taking a shower, etc.

Last week it was me just trying to convince him Rick Porcello was the same as Mark Redman. I don't really think that, but it's great fun.

[X3NEIZE]

I don't know... I got a trade offer package that included Nolan Arenado and a couple of good prospects for Gary Sanchez and another prospect (Andujar).... seems to me it was a bad deal for them, I declined anyhow, but I'll be happy if Sanchez turns out to put anywhere near the numbers Arenado does...

[Harmon Killebrew]

I haven't gotten very far in a franchise yet (season-wise), but I'm wondering if this year's trade A.I. is like it was a couple years ago, in that, before somewhere around the ammy draft... I don't recall the exact time in game, but it was a month to two months into the season that if you tried trading before that time, the A.I. was extremely difficult to make a deal with. After that time, the A.I. would loosen up a bit and be a bit more flexible.

Is this still the case in this year's game?

[daves]

Try the actual trade between the Red Sox and the White Sox in the 2016 season. If the computer Gm says "it's a rip off no way", than hard is unrealistic.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by daves

Try the actual trade between the Red Sox and the White Sox in the 2016 season. If the computer Gm says "it's a rip off no way", than hard is unrealistic.

OR the game AI with scouting enabled evaluates the players differently from the two human GMs involved.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Orcin

OR the game AI with scouting enabled evaluates the players differently from the two human GMs involved.

ha ha. That it could. But is it about difficulty or realism that we want in the game. The initial comment is as much about difficultly as much as it seems unrealistic.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Airdrop01

Also, Sale is a cancer.

PS- Did I mention I really don't like Sale?

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

You're right it is supposed to be "hard" but it just seems like the way players are being valued is the only thing that increases, regardless of what a team's defined mission is.

Take a look at my other post about GM Trade Settings. I think that might be the root of the problem.

just to set tone.. no criticism of aI below. for a video sports game, it's as good as any other that i've played.. they are all flawed in a similar way... human > ai in any complex situation or where the objective facts that the ai use are not 'perfect predictors' (on purpose). they can make an ai that will take advantage of you, if they wanted. but, who want's a perfect decision making machine? (relative to ltm/lt .. and not using overall/potential or any other aggregate rating without a ~1:1 relationship with expected results(common sense for simplicity onthat last one needs to be applied)... etc)

----------------

The AI has to use quantitative measures to accept/reject. Some of these merely shift as the difficulty changes. (e.g. positional need/weight could shift too.. maybe teams aren't so desparate at high difficulty - this type of change would be difficult to see with your eye, unlike the obvious increase in what they ask for or demand in return)

i guess they could re-write all of the ai relative to trades for each setting, but that's not how it is, currently. that's significantly more time intensive then merely shifting what the AI views as "equal" compensation. each setting merely replaces a few variables in the existing "equation" (visualization of it). it's not using a wholey new way of thinking.

normal can be fair, but on occasion you can really confuse the AI with players that look like good players (overall/potential), but when an human eye evaluates them, you know they are junk relative to their elevated overall rating.

(alot of that is relative to league environment... e.g. talent evaluation is different depending on LTM/LTs and other settings. this is another wrinkle that the current AI likely does not handle well, but a human can adjust to and create a competitive advantage over the AI -- again if they wanted to, they could make this infinitely better than a human eye.. i don't think people wnat that, either.)

i don't like "hard" either... so i apply a little moderation inmy trading, as i have with draft pick trading. with draft pick trading i just don't allow myself to receive a bunch of early picks - none at all actually. my only goal is to get rid of my last 10 picks and allow the AI a little more versatility in its dealings not involving me.

With normal trading i have to give away 2-3+ good to better players for a stud. that's not too far off from normal, imo. but, it is still true that it is easy to build a team with this trading level. in a recent league i haven't dipped below 130wins, and i restrict my payroll to ~250M.

I can't be taking too much advantage at normal difficulty when those trade partners typically improve significantly after my dealings with them... i recently saw one team 2 of 3 WS... they had a ~5 year window of ~100 wins. so, i didn't screw them over too badly, eh? (the players were in use, not false attribution here)

i think normal trading is quite fair, if you avoid raping the AI. it doesn't crop up that often... and desperate teams do desperate things... taking advantage of them does happen in RL, too. so, this is entirely a grey area... there's no obvious right/wrong, if reasonable... not to mention at least 1/3rd of GMs in any year are quite inept at their jobs... more akin to a herd of goats.

[AlpineSK]

NoOne,

I love a lot of what you said, and in hindsight I probably should have just combined my two threads.

The Trade Strategy for almost every GM is currently set the same, as is the drafting strategy. I see that as what might be a fix for my gripe if it is adjusted. I guess ultimately, my question is, are the devs going to give any attention to trying to tweak the personalities of each GM? From talks in the leadup for 18, it seemed like they would be.

[AlpineSK]

Looking back through previous posts, Matt said:

So, I don't know if you guys missed the changes last year, but that's basically what the GM personalities do. GMs can be listed as favoring prospects, they can prefer certain types of players. And that all gets merged in with their team's mode (win-now, rebuild, etc...) as well as their current record, in how much to value prospects vs current talent.

With them almost all set the same, that seems to kind of cancel out this desired effect.