Another Red Arrow Rant

[sreem]

Have a look at the West Michigan Whitecaps

This is the default MLB quickstart and I have made minimal moves setting up the Minors.

Why in the world does my scout or coaches or what ever believe that the entire position player roster on the MI Whitecaps not belong there? I realize IRL they are not the best team this year, but, seriously!?

The red arrows strike again! This tends to mostly happen with position players.

PLEASE PLEASE give a toggle switch to turn red and green arrows on/off!!!!

Thank you

[Silfir]

Right now, I have no idea what the number 1 song of my local country's Top 100 Singles charts is. Not only do I not know, I am too lazy to look it up.

But I still care more about the name of that song than I do about the red and green arrows in the Rosters screen.

It's like my Assistant GM's opinion on trades, or my players' expectations about their position or spot in the lineup.

[sreem]

Originally Posted by Silfir

Right now, I have no idea what the number 1 song of my local country's Top 100 Singles charts is. Not only do I not know, I am too lazy to look it up.

But I still care more about the name of that song than I do about the red and green arrows in the Rosters screen.

It's like my Assistant GM's opinion on trades, or my players' expectations about their position or spot in the lineup.

I'm happy that it doesn't matter to you, but for me it is hard to ignore when reviewing and moving minor league players around. With the extensive amount of options that can be enabled/disabled in this game I find it hard to believe that the arrows can't be set to an on/off mode for those of us who don't like them.

For those of you who don't care, like yourself, it wouldn't effect you in the slightest.

Maybe in OOTP 20?

[Arobbins]

This whole time I thought they were development arrows. They're supposed to suggest level/team changes?

[Timofmars]

I can't believe that all those arrows are wrong. That would matter to me, since players are supposed to develop better if they are at an appropriate level of competition. Also, there is some leeway, in that players can be at few different levels usually and not have an up or down arrow from the AI suggestions.

So if it were me, I'd try moving down the players that the AI says are overmatched, or at least any that have potential. I'd also consider signing some free agents who already have some appropriate current ability to minor league contracts, and release excess prospects with no potential as needed.

[Timofmars]

What overall rating do those players have if you change the game settings to show abilities relative to that league (MID A)?

[polydamas]

I only really pay attention to green arrows and even then it is only used to question my judgment not make my decision.

[ArcAngel]

I ignore the arrows, either green or red.

I also ignore the recommendation in the minor system report.

[Leo_The_Lip]

My continued concern with the arrows is that there is (almost always) a SS at AA with a red arrow and a SS at A with a green arrow and selecting the 'AI setup minors' option will change a lot of players, but these two--arguably the most obvious and needed change--will never occur.

This issue goes back many, many versions and has never been addressed.

[Dyzalot]

I always get confused when I have the AI deciding what level my minor leaguers play at and I see a second baseman at AAA with a down arrow and a second baseman at AA with an up arrow.

[NCBeachBum]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

I always get confused when I have the AI deciding what level my minor leaguers play at and I see a second baseman at AAA with a down arrow and a second baseman at AA with an up arrow.

Those 2.5A players will drive you crazy.

[Timofmars]

Another thing is that it seems that the recommendations depend on what position the player is set to. So a pitcher might be good enough as an SP, but not RP, or vice versa. Or a batter is good enough as an SS, but not at 1B.

I could understand a pitcher being good enough as an RP but not SP. But it seems a bit odd that players could be good enough as SP but not RP, even if they get a big boost to their stuff rating as an RP, as I see is the case with one of my rookie league pitchers that is recommended to move up when set to SP, even with 100% scouting accuracy and 100% rating based evaluations.

Though when I played with the game settings regarding how overall rating is calculated (relative to which league, and whether it is based on position or overall), the AI decided to change it's mind about thinking my rookie league pitcher should be promoted, even though nothing but these settings which seem to be for display purposed only were changed. Seems like a bit a bug. All other players seemed to maintain their recommendations.

It looks like the recommendations for batters are determined by the batter's overall rating for his level, without regard to the average strength of other players at that position and level. I can clearly see that when I order the players by overall rating and see where the line is drawn on recommending promotion/demotion. But changing what position the batter is set to will change his overall rating, so that can change the AI recommendation.

If that recommendation is supposed to be directly related to optimal competition levels for player development, then that begs the question of whether the player's position setting makes a difference in his development, or if the position he actually plays in games makes a difference. I would tend to think that the position he plays is what matters, not his display position setting, since it seems in my experience that WAR and a player's performance morale both depend his game position, such as a good C playing 1B and putting up good numbers for a C may be unhappy with his performance if it's not so good for a 1B. And if that's true, it may also be possible to play a player in his weaker position if he is too good for his current level in his current position, in order to bring his apparent abilities down to a more appropriate level that matches the league level and gives him a challenge.

Unlike batters, pitchers' overall ability rating doesn't change when you change their role unless you have the setting turned on to compare players to others in their position. But clearly there must be a different standard for SP vs RP at each level, since changing a pitcher's role can change the AI promotion recommendation. So maybe SP are compared to SPs, RPs to RPs, and all batters are compared to each other but with their defense for their currently set postion taken into account.

Also, it appears that the recommendations are based on what overall ratings you show, even as you toggle whether overall rating are based purely on scout ratings or on AI evaluation that includes stats (in OOTPB 18, which is what I'm playing). In other words, changing that setting changes the recommendations, but that setting I think is only really supposed to be for your personal display preferences with no other game effect. But actually, it changes the promotion recommendations, so I think that's strong evidence that the recommendations aren't from some coach or someone that "might know something you don't know," but rather is just a measurement of whether a player's overall rating, however derived, is above or below a certain threshold for that league.

But then the question still remains about what actually determines whether a player is properly challenged by the competition or not for development purposes. My guess would be that it does depend on overall ratings based on his real ratings (100% accuracy numbers, no stats) for the position he is playing in games.

[Syd Thrift]

At the risk of adding too much info, maybe there could be gradations of the arrows? Like, you get a little double-up arrow when a guy is just plain way overclassed for his current team, or a little double-down arrow when a guy is like 3 levels too high or something. Personally I mostly ignore them too, especially since as noted the AI uses other

Speaking of that, I kind of would like to have a *little* more under-the-hood info as to why a particular player is considered too low or too high for his current level. Is that a straight consideration or is it, too, filtered through the lens of scouted current/potentials and stats? If it's the latter, which filter is it going through? The scout's (which might explain why your assistant GM might refuse to push an up-arrow player up, I guess) or someone else? Is this a sign that the player has already taken hits by not being at the appropriate level or is it that these are impending?

I know it's a *little* against the philosophy of the game but I'd kind of like to see a lot of these calculations put a bit more out into the open the way that Europa Universalis does it. OOTP is already kind of EU4 for sports...

[BBGiovanni]

Or maybe you could "snooze" or dismiss the arrows for 2 weeks or something?

I was going to suggest being able to manually set/reset them, but I guess what would do that would be customizable colors or symbols or something for shortlists, which would do the same thing.

[5-4-3]

Could we get a setup option to turn the arrows off?