AI Trade "LOGIC"

[AlpineSK]

How is it that we are on OOTP 23 and the trade logic in this game is so maddingly bad?

I'm playing a historical sim. I started with the 1989 Phillies and I'm in 1991. Difficulty and preference are both 1 click right of center, and my eval settings are 15/50/25/10.

So as you'd expect I'm pretty low in the majors. Its the trade deadline so I thought I'd look around and see who I could sell.

I've got Mark Gubicza in the last year of his contract with a team option for 1992. He admittedly had a good year last year: 10-4 in 26 starts with a league best 2.61 ERA after missing the entirety of the 1989 season with an injury. This year though he's 4-11 with a 4.29 ERA and 1.24 WHIP, 2.3 WAR. So I decided to shop him. Here are some of the players I've been offered 1-for-1 in return:

Jack McDowell (BOS) - The Sox are in first place. McDowell leads the AL in wins and has a 12-4 record with 97 K's. He was signed to a one year deal before this season and recently signed a 5 year $6.6M extension.

Don Robinson (KC) - Free agent after this year. The Royals are in first place as well. Robinson has a 10-5 record with 69 K's. his win total is second best on the team.

Harold Baines (MIL) - .274/12/50. .322 OBP. The Brewers are 7.5 games out of first place.

Andres Galarraga (OAK) - Signed to a FA contract in JANUARY of this year. .309/15/62 with a .343 OBP. Their positional status is the same as Milwaukee's pretty much. Oh, and they traded me McGwire last season.

Scott Sanderson (SEA) - Signed as a free agent in March of this year. 12-4. Tied for the league lead in wins. 3.27 ERA. Seattle is 2 games out of first place.

Rafael Palmeiro (TEX) - Extension signed prior to 1990 season. .248/10/47. He's 26 with marginal stats, but just signed last season to a longer term deal.

Mark Grace (CHC) - .318/9HR/52 RBI. .368 OBP. Arbitration eligible after this year. Chicago is near the bottom of the NL East with me.

Bob Welch (CIN) - 11-7, 2.96 ERA. 3.4 WAR. Signed a 4 year $12M deal prior to this season.

Danny Jackson (NYM) - Signed through 1992. He's currently 8-1 with 12 saves, a 1.80 ERA, and 59 K's in 85 IP. The Mets are in first place.

That's just a sample of the offers that I've gotten for mediocre players and the theme that seems to usually rein supreme is the AI is very quick to unload bigger contracts regardless of when they were signed. Like recently signed players from teams at the top of their division are available.

How is it that we are in the 24th version of this game and "Contract" is not something that we can add to the AI evaluation weight???

Year after year this has been a problem and year after year we read how the "Trade AI was improved" but I have seen very little difference over the last five or six years. I police my own trades, but why do I have to? And why do I have to sit and watch the AI make ho-hum boring trades with each other?

/rant

[jbergey22]

Agree 100 percent.

Also, when the computer releases top prospects so you have to go in and give them back to the team that released them.

It would be nice if we didnt have to micromanage the AI one of these years.

[MathBandit]

My experience (and the experience of others I've seen) is that if you bump difficulty up to +5 (probably minimum +3) then you don't have to police trades because the game does it for you. It's hard to judge some of these trade offers though since most of the stats you listed (OBP, ERA, Wins, RBIs, AVG) don't really say anything meaningful about performance.

Trading AI was MUCH improved last year (maybe the year before; I can't remember) and has seen another significant jump this year. But the default settings are meant for more casual players I think - or players who prefer to have easier trades available and are willing to police themselves.

[AlpineSK]

I've played with a rightward shift in the trade difficulty and what I typically find is to get just about any deal done I have to trade my top prospects. That really doesn't make much sense for a rebuilding team.

At that point most prospect offers are met with 1.5 and 2 star prospects which are pretty much useless deals. I'm not saying I want a top-100 prospect with every trade deadline deal, that's not reasonable as well, but I should be able to snag some middle of the road guys.

As for the stats that I gave, I can assure you that the majority of the guys that I listed are having really good years. The common thread with most of them is that they were signed to extensions in the last 16 months and regardless of the team's performance and position in the standings they're willing to give those guys (and their contracts) up in return for a middle to low rotation guy by comparison.

[Marinersfan51]

Really the only issue I have with the trade logic is the eagerness the AI will have to trade players who just signed extensions or as FA. In real life, it would be extremely unusual for a player who just signed a 4+ year free agent deal to be traded in the first year of that deal, but the AI appears to make no distinction based on the proximity to signing their last deal. It seems to treat a player in the first few months of a 5 year deal the same as it would any other player with 5 years left on their contract.

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by Marinersfan51

Really the only issue I have with the trade logic is the eagerness the AI will have to trade players who just signed extensions or as FA. In real life, it would be extremely unusual for a player who just signed a 4+ year free agent deal to be traded in the first year of that deal, but the AI appears to make no distinction based on the proximity to signing their last deal. It seems to treat a player in the first few months of a 5 year deal the same as it would any other player with 5 years left on their contract.

THIS. A lack of value in financial investment into a player is right up there with a complete a total disregard for competition and rivalries.

[PSUColonel]

well, I realize a lot of people don't like hearing this (I am not very popular in the AI Evaluation Settings Thread) but I am not in love with your settings at all.

I know people are going to say it shouldn't matter THIS much, but I think you need to do ALL you can do to help the AI before judging. After that, have at it. I seriously would recommend the following:

AI Evaluation with at least 55 weight on ratings. The default is 65, but I think you need at least 55 to give the AI a reasonable chance. Others disagree with me on this, but that is likely because they are the type who don't mind "self-policing". I am not that type of person, and want a challenge. Therefore I recommend using 55/20/15/10.

Secondly, I recommend having the trade AI difficulty at maximum, while leaving the prospects/vets preferences at the default neutral position.

[LansdowneSt]

I don't know if it is that the AI is misreading the market trading good players for, in this case, Gubicza and his expiring contract year... such much as the break in the logic is on the financial management and aging side.

If the other teams have those great players at high dollars or if the player is past age 34 or so, it seems the AI is built to devalue their performance and wired to move them and so can indeed be ripped off by a shrewd trade. The problem of the AI quickly making newly signed star FA available via trades is also, in my mind, related to how one side of the AI is built to sign that player only to have the other side of the AI's brain immediately say "Hey, I have an overpaid veteran, I need to dump him because I'll be over budget soon or they will be aging soon..." Either the signings need to align to the trade brain or vice versa but the disparity between outbidding me in the FA market in dollars and years and then trying to trade him a few months later is frustrating at times.

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

well, I realize a lot of people don't like hearing this (I am not very popular in the AI Evaluation Settings Thread) but I am not in love with your settings at all.

I know people are going to say it shouldn't matter THIS much, but I think you need to do ALL you can do to help the AI before judging. After that, have at it. I seriously would recommend the following:

AI Evaluation with at least 55 weight on ratings. The default is 65, but I think you need at least 55 to give the AI a reasonable chance. Others disagree with me on this, but that is likely because they are the type who don't mind "self-policing". I am not that type of person, and want a challenge. Therefore I recommend using 55/20/15/10.

Secondly, I recommend having the trade AI difficulty at maximum, while leaving the prospects/vets preferences at the default neutral position.

Thanks.. And I really like your takes on AI eval settings and read them regularly.

More of my issue is in the contract management. Its like the Trade AI and the Free Agent AI are not even remotely on the same page.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by AlpineSK

Thanks.. And I really like your takes on AI eval settings and read them regularly.

More of my issue is in the contract management. Its like the Trade AI and the Free Agent AI are not even remotely on the same page.

Yea…I agree with that also…there’s another thread around regarding unloading expiring contracts that I agree with also. I do think it’s something requiring some attention. I just feel we should start from an optimal place in terms of helping the AI as much as possible.

[jimmysthebestcop]

At least Humans can use house rules, settings etc but the real problem is AI to AI trades. They are awful. Like the trading block. And teams dont try and pick up players while the AI teams are trading top rentals for anything. I mean why wouldnt a playoff team send a random A+ player to rent a top 25 pitcher or bat.

Ive literally did these trades and immediately shopped the player and every team wanted them and were offering fairly good stuff. So why werent they offering these players to the AI team?

I dont think the trading block works at all between AI teams. If it does then something else in the settings or logic else where is messing it up.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Follow Up Yanks place Chapman on trading block. Take over 50% of his contract for a scrub. I shop him around and the Yanks are offering prospects for him.

Sorry but trading has serious problems regardless of settings.

Sure when you have to test things out you want normal conditions but you also want to test to see what happens when a user tries to break the system. And trading is a honestly a big fail.

Not to mention Chapman is top Closer in league and Yankees are 2 GB of 1st and in a playoff hunt. Why would they dump a contract? They should be buyers not sellers.

I took a year off from OOTP in 22 and this year I skipped FM cause I was pretty busy. I was craving baseball so bought OOTP I kind of regret it now.

I have no idea how players play dynasties or decades in OOTP there are just so many loose ends and bugs and things that dont make sense.

Think I only am only enjoying OOTP because I like the busy work it gives me. I like the busy work FM gives me but I also actually the game play. OOTP its like i have to force myself to turn a blind eye to the game play and just focus on numbers, stats, names.

[oomm]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

At least Humans can use house rules, settings etc but the real problem is AI to AI trades. They are awful. Like the trading block. And teams dont try and pick up players while the AI teams are trading top rentals for anything. I mean why wouldnt a playoff team send a random A+ player to rent a top 25 pitcher or bat.

Ive literally did these trades and immediately shopped the player and every team wanted them and were offering fairly good stuff. So why werent they offering these players to the AI team?

I dont think the trading block works at all between AI teams. If it does then something else in the settings or logic else where is messing it up.

Have you played with trades turned off?

[jimmysthebestcop]

Originally Posted by oomm

Have you played with trades turned off?

what is the point of that? would you play with pitching turned off?

sorry but weird house rules to overcome game problems doesnt work for me.

The AI shouldnt trade players then ask for them back. Playoff teams dont dump they buy. Money teams dont sign free agents to long term deals then try and move them either. These rules should be built in.

Just fix the game

[oomm]

I guess I'd be tempted to if the pitching was stupid, no? And since you're right that playing baseball with pitching turned off is more stupid than stupid pitching I may at that point begin to wonder if it isn't yet time for the ol' annual time to rip ootp from my hdd!

I guess another way around it is to play with historical transactions on, which you can't do with a fictional universe.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

Follow Up Yanks place Chapman on trading block. Take over 50% of his contract for a scrub. I shop him around and the Yanks are offering prospects for him.

Sorry but trading has serious problems regardless of settings.

Sure when you have to test things out you want normal conditions but you also want to test to see what happens when a user tries to break the system. And trading is a honestly a big fail.

Not to mention Chapman is top Closer in league and Yankees are 2 GB of 1st and in a playoff hunt. Why would they dump a contract? They should be buyers not sellers.

I took a year off from OOTP in 22 and this year I skipped FM cause I was pretty busy. I was craving baseball so bought OOTP I kind of regret it now.

I have no idea how players play dynasties or decades in OOTP there are just so many loose ends and bugs and things that dont make sense.

Think I only am only enjoying OOTP because I like the busy work it gives me. I like the busy work FM gives me but I also actually the game play. OOTP its like i have to force myself to turn a blind eye to the game play and just focus on numbers, stats, names.

I have to tell you in all honesty OOTP 22 is a very polished product. In OOTP 23 they went in to change a lot of things under the hood, and it doesn't seem the changes are all ironed out yet. It's the price of progress though. When you move to make changes, you are going to fall down a few times before getting it right. The trade AI was definitely one of the aspects of OOTP 23 that was changed. I think it will ultimately be an improvement, but it also may take a little time to iron out all of the wrinkles also.

In terms of FM 2022...it is an incredibly polished product. I recommend picking it up if you have time to spend. It really is outstanding. There are so many ideas I wish OOTP would just steal from them already. Team dynamics, organizational goals, the amount of staff and personalities, interaction with players/staff, and so many other things. Analytics comes to mind...although I realize OOTP is not a physics based engine, which might make it tougher to do. I don't know if FM is or isn't, but it sure seems like it is.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

what is the point of that? would you play with pitching turned off?

sorry but weird house rules to overcome game problems doesnt work for me.

The AI shouldnt trade players then ask for them back. Playoff teams dont dump they buy. Money teams dont sign free agents to long term deals then try and move them either. These rules should be built in.

Just fix the game

I agree with this....I detest house rules, and "self-policing" in order to make a game challenging and/or realistic.

[jimmysthebestcop]

I am interested in F1 Manager 22 I releasing in August, I believe that is the title.

[AlpineSK]

If you're going to go to OOTP22 do it SOON they're going to stop selling it very shortly on Steam at least. I'm not sure if the eStore here is going to follow or not.

[oomm]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

what is the point of that? would you play with pitching turned off?

sorry but weird house rules to overcome game problems doesnt work for me.

The AI shouldnt trade players then ask for them back. Playoff teams dont dump they buy. Money teams dont sign free agents to long term deals then try and move them either. These rules should be built in.

Just fix the game

Do you use the coaching system?