About recalc and ratings

[italyprof]

I noticed that in the initial setup where we now have a bunch of options, where we can set the recalc period, and the bases for ratings there is an option to set potential ratings, there is now an option for whole career. But once you enter the game, under stats there is only the same four options as always. What's up with this?

That's my first question. Second:

A lot of players have maybe a good season or two. If I set recalc to peak seasons, to remaining seasons, remaining peak seasons isn't this all the same thing? I ask because a lot of these types are showing up with ratings of 80 or close in the draft right up there with the superstars.
Is the only way to prevent this single season recalc?

[Charlie Hough]

Those options are nothing new. They have been around for ages, and you can read about them in the OOTP manual, although I will summarize them below. The initial calculation and recalc settings determine the stats that will be used to calculate a player's current and potential ratings in various areas. They don't affect how ratings or stats are shown other than to affect the ratings themselves. You can always view a player's real life stats in his profile by using the correct tab, and you can then use the filters within that tab to look at different types of stats.

For a player's potential ratings, this is what the settings do:

Career Totals: Ratings will be assigned based on a player's entire career.

Remaining Years of Career: Ratings are based on the player's remaining career. For example, if you start a league in 1930, this option will base the ratings in question on what the player accomplished in 1930 and later.

Peak Seasons of Career: Ratings will be assigned based on the best years of a player's career.

Remaining Peak Seasons: Ratings will be based on the player's best remaining seasons in his real-life stats. For example, if you start a league in 1970, ratings will be based on the best seasons a player had from 1970 onward.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by italyprof

A lot of players have maybe a good season or two. If I set recalc to peak seasons, to remaining seasons, remaining peak seasons isn't this all the same thing?

I don't think the potential setting affects how players perform. Rather, those settings are how you want to view players' potential. It's current ratings that determine player performance.

[Reed]

Originally Posted by thehef

I don't think the potential setting affects how players perform. Rather, those settings are how you want to view players' potential. It's current ratings that determine player performance.

The manual is somewhat confusing. It says the players ratings will be based on the above settings. When it says rating what does it really mean? I hate assuming but I assume is is talking about comparing a player to the other players when you do a draft and it has the potential column.
It is pretty somewhat unreliable IMO because with remaining years selected I have seen players with 4 or 5 years rated higher than players with 10+ years.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by italyprof

I noticed that in the initial setup where we now have a bunch of options, where we can set the recalc period, and the bases for ratings there is an option to set potential ratings, there is now an option for whole career. But once you enter the game, under stats there is only the same four options as always. What's up with this?

That's my first question. Second:

A lot of players have maybe a good season or two. If I set recalc to peak seasons, to remaining seasons, remaining peak seasons isn't this all the same thing? I ask because a lot of these types are showing up with ratings of 80 or close in the draft right up there with the superstars.
Is the only way to prevent this single season recalc?

PEAK seasons still does not work for player over 29 as the concept of potential rating ceases to exists, even if they had greater years in the future

Appears there has been no updates to user manual or online tool tips to explain things thoroughly

[Brad K]

When playing historical players and recalc potential is irrelevant. If you want to know how good a player might be review your memory or look him up on baseball reference.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Reed

It is pretty somewhat unreliable IMO because with remaining years selected I have seen players with 4 or 5 years rated higher than players with 10+ years.

A player's number of remaining years in the historical database does not affect potential ratings. OOTP does not look at a player with 10 years of future history in the database and give him higher potential ratings than a player with similar stats who has only 4 or 5 years of remaining history.

OOTP only looks at the player's statistics within the specified range to determine that player's potential. The potential rating gives you a sense of how good that player can potentially become or will become in OOTP based on those stats, but the game does not evaluate the length of a player's future historical career as part of its calculations. Once you've started your game, that player may end up having a bit of a different history anyway, depending on your settings and whether you're recalculating ratings each season, allowing players to play longer than they did in real life, allowing career-ending injuries, using the development engine, etc.

If you're planning to recalculate player ratings each season according to history, potential won't matter much. In that case, it's just a one-time cosmetic indicator of future potential or value based on the potential calculation setting that you specified.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

If you're planning to recalculate player ratings each season according to history, potential won't matter much. In that case, it's just a one-time cosmetic indicator of future potential or value based on the potential calculation setting that you specified.

Very nicely and simply explained. Nice work!

[Charlie Hough]

Thanks. I tried for years to get OOTP Developments to provide an option where the game would calculate and use a player's true future historical value when calculating a player's overall potential in a saved game that uses recalc. That way, the human user and the AI could see just how valuable a player would be based on his future historical stats, how those would impact his year-to-year ratings and value, and how many good or great years he had remaining in the database. But it never made its way into the game, and it would probably be difficult to implement.

In the end, once I started playing with historical minors, I started using the development engine instead of recalc to determine player ratings and evolution over their careers, and I ended up enjoying that experience much more.

[italyprof]

Thanks everyone. I have learned a lot. I understand that the potential rating is really a scouting evaluation, not their real value, nor an indication of how they will perform.

It is merely distracting when drafting and setting the order that players appear for either current or potential rating to presumably see who the better players are, to find a lot of guys with one good season at the top alongside Babe Ruth or whatever. But in the end it is an appearance thing.

What I should do is either set it to not show ratings at all - I always look at the "Real Life Stats" anyway, so baseball-reference, great a site as it is, is not needed for OOTP as they provide us with the real life performances, but I digress.

I should shut showing ratings off, set the draft order to appear in alphabetical order only and go with real life stats to draft as I do anyway.

Mainly, my issue was that technically, for a player - let's imagine one who had the following stats (invented):

1976 - 20 AB, .175 avg., 0 HR
1977 - 450 AB, .275 avg. 22 HR
1978 - 120 AB, .165 avg., 2 HR
1979 - 30 AB, .125 avg. 0 HR

For that player "peak seasons" and "remaining peak seasons" are both 1977. Period. If instead the good season had been 1979, his last year in the big leagues, and the current season corresponded to his 1978 one, then "remaining career seasons", "remaining peak seasons" and "peak seasons" are ALL 1979, so the changing settings mean nothing. And he just might be rated at 78 or 80 out of 80, so if the draft pool is ordered by potentinal setting, he is right up there with Johnny Bench.

But it is cosmetic. So, I think I will just go without a net and turn off the ratings being visible when drafting. Thanks all!

[Charlie Hough]

I would recommend using the ratings. I use current and potential ratings to evaluate historical players when drafting, but I also look at their real life stats tab if I'm not familiar with them. That allows me to see the arc of their careers and what sort of stats generated their ratings. By looking at their ratings, I'm also able to see ratings that are really important in OOTP, such as the eye and avoid Ks ratings for batters or the control rating for pitchers. It's a lot easier to use the ratings to quickly evaluate a player in these areas rather than trying to figure them out from many seasons of stats. Keep in mind that the AI GMs are not able to "see" things in this same way, but this approach addresses the concerns you have about assessing a player's future historical value.

[Hoiles]

Originally Posted by thehef

I don't think the potential setting affects how players perform. Rather, those settings are how you want to view players' potential. It's current ratings that determine player performance.

As far as I know, potential doesn't affect player performance directly, but if development is on they will influence changes of current ratings, and thus indirectly. Even if recalc is on, it's only done once a year, so at other points during the season, the current ratings may change due to player potential. Just from experience, in past versions a Nolan Ryan may have his ratings decline during the season in his 40s due to aging/reduced potential, then have his ratings pumped back up whenever the recalc kicks in, which may not occur until the offseason.

Please feel free to correct me if any of this is wrong.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Hoiles

Please feel free to correct me if any of this is wrong.

No, you're absolutely right, as long as you have enabled player development. Potential ratings are one of the key factors that impact player development, but the OOTP manual is not very clear or detailed about how all of this works:

Very talented players often (but not always) develop more quickly. In addition, some players simply develop more quickly than others. You might be baffled by the high-potential player who fails to live up to expectations, or be pleasantly surprised by the late-round draft pick who quickly advances.

This doesn't give us much insight into all the ways that potential might impact player development and how OOTP uses a player's potential ratings to determine development and its impact on a player's current ratings. But it's certainly true that it's a factor if you're using development.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Hoiles

As far as I know, potential doesn't affect player performance directly, but if development is on they will influence changes of current ratings, and thus indirectly. Even if recalc is on, it's only done once a year, so at other points during the season, the current ratings may change due to player potential. Just from experience, in past versions a Nolan Ryan may have his ratings decline during the season in his 40s due to aging/reduced potential, then have his ratings pumped back up whenever the recalc kicks in, which may not occur until the offseason.

Please feel free to correct me if any of this is wrong.

I had an older player, don't remember who, who declined from 10 to 1 in defense (20 scale) during the season and popped back up to 10 to start the next season. Happened three times I think.

[nezer]

This is a great thread as a new OOTP player but doesnt exactly answer what I was going to ask. Instead of starting a new thread, Ill just ask it here. What settings do people use when youre just doing a single, one year, season replay with using historical transactions and as-played lineups?

From my reading, it seems like the most important area is the "Player Evaluation AI Settings" section when you go through the "advanced settings" when starting a new historical league.

What Im looking for are the % that will produce the most accurate results. I do want there to be some variability for both the players and teams stats, but not to the point where the finals results are not a close representation.

The areas are

Ratings Weight %
Current Year Stats Weight%
Prev Years Stats Weight%
2 yrs ago Stats Weight%

My instinct says to go with 10,90,0, 0

But Id like to hear what experienced players think.

[Reed]

Delete

[Reed]

Originally Posted by nezer

This is a great thread as a new OOTP player but doesnt exactly answer what I was going to ask. Instead of starting a new thread, Ill just ask it here. What settings do people use when youre just doing a single, one year, season replay with using historical transactions and as-played lineups?

From my reading, it seems like the most important area is the "Player Evaluation AI Settings" section when you go through the "advanced settings" when starting a new historical league.

What Im looking for are the % that will produce the most accurate results. I do want there to be some variability for both the players and teams stats, but not to the point where the finals results are not a close representation.

The areas are

Ratings Weight %
Current Year Stats Weight%
Prev Years Stats Weight%
2 yrs ago Stats Weight%

My instinct says to go with 10,90,0, 0

But Id like to hear what experienced players think.

If you are doing a single season and want the players result to be as close to real life, I would use 1 year recalc and for player evaluation setting I would set to 100% rating. Development off. Injuries off. Personalities off, Chemistry off. I guess just about everything else off unless you want historical transaction;lineups

[Brad K]

With historical transactions and lineups AI has a lot fewer decisions to make. Its not something I'd put a lot of effort into for this situation. However since there are no trades to consider, only substitutions, I favor setting that rely more on stats.

For multi year I think the settings should favor ratings as AI should make better decisions for the long term on trades and signings. I'm going to switch to 50 30 15 5 next save.

[Brad K]

In my view AI evaluation based on stats exists because of the possibility of inaccurate ratings. So how much weight is placed on stats might be adjusted depending on the setting for scouting accuracy.

The game runs on ratings and ratings aren't influenced by stats produced by the game. Yet under the default settings, among current year, last year, and two years ago stats are 70% of the AI evaluation. 70% seems to me way too much if scouting accuracy is set to normal.