I think I accidentally stumbled on the hardest settings

[majesty95]

So I’ve long wondered why I struggle so much compared to so many I see on here and I think I’ve figured it out. My settings make it much harder on me than normal. Here’s a look at what I do if you want to give it a go.

Coaches: OFF (I think it’s too easy to manipulate this to your advantage over the AI. Plus it’s time consuming.)

Scouting: OFF (Same reason. Too easy to fleece the AI and stack up the best scouting department.)

Players personalities, chemistry, etc: OFF (I play historicals and I hate trying to edit these to match my expectations of real life. Plus it can be a pain to try and keep all your teams happy. I like it but I don’t so I keep them off.)

Trading draft picks: OFF (I think this is the single easiest way to fleece the AI on top of not being a thing in MLB so I always have that off.)

Overall and potential: 20/80 scale (All ratings are on a 20/80 scale. This might be the only thing that’s easier a little. But it’s also much harder than seeing 1/100 or even 1/20.)

With these set like this it takes away most of the things I see people use to build super teams. I can having trading at +1 towards hard and it’s very challenging, especially with a mid-small market team (which is what I usually play with).

If you’re looking for a challenge or already play like this, let me know what you think of playing this way.

[Pelican]

Hah I use basically the opposite, and still at times struggle. That could be a lack of competence on my part, or because I cannot resist struggling teams.

To me, playing with no coaching and particularly with no scouting is playing blind, or random. Remember the AI gets to take advantage of both, as well. And, if you find you are fleecing the AI in trades, you either need a house rule for bad deals (in the words of Justice Stewart on pornography, “I know it when I see it”), or move that trade difficulty slider to hard. Or both, preferably.

I have never had a credible explanation of the 20-80 scouting ratings, and a truncated system makes no sense to me, so I use 0-100. I grew up with decimals, so it seems natural.

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Hah I use basically the opposite, and still at times struggle. That could be a lack of competence on my part, or because I cannot resist struggling teams.

To me, playing with no coaching and particularly with no scouting is playing blind, or random. Remember the AI gets to take advantage of both, as well. And, if you find you are fleecing the AI in trades, you either need a house rule for bad deals (in the words of Justice Stewart on pornography, “I know it when I see it”), or move that trade difficulty slider to hard. Or both, preferably.

I have never had a credible explanation of the 20-80 scouting ratings, and a truncated system makes no sense to me, so I use 0-100. I grew up with decimals, so it seems natural.

But that’s the thing, you can’t really fleece the AI in a trade bc they see the actual ratings just like you. I’ve been able to find a few decent guys that turned out good but fleecing them is near impossible.

With 1-100 you know exactly what the player is. With 20-80 they could be n the low end of the raging and maybe not quite as a good as you expect (this happed A LOT).

The AI doesn’t handle coaches particularly well so it’s pretty easy to stack your coaching staff. Scouting I’m not sure how big the advantage is bc I hated getting guys I thought were good but weren’t.

Part of me likes the simplicity of not having coaches and scouts but it’s damn hard to win. Especially as a small market team.

Now I gotta figure out how to make money lol

[Pelican]

What I find is the AI sometimes seemingly misinterprets ratings and undervalues a player. Getting a good deal on that guy isn’t really fleecing, to the extent my house rule bars the deal. I frequently GM lousy teams, and you take what you can get. The seeming precision of 0-100 is a myth.

With scouting, the 0-100 ratings are just estimates, can change, and can be wrong. For young guys, no guarantee high potential will ever be realized. So it’s still a crapshoot. It’s one guy’s opinion.

For small-market teams, I plow money into developing talent, rather than signing free agents. That puts a high value on scouting and coaching.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by majesty95

With these set like this it takes away most of the things I see people use to build super teams. I can having trading at +1 towards hard and it’s very challenging, especially with a mid-small market team (which is what I usually play with).

If you’re looking for a challenge or already play like this, let me know what you think of playing this way.

A small or mid market team with an owner whose goal is profit and who controls the budget would provide most of the challenge. This isn't necessarily more of a challenge than building a super team. However creating a situation where a 120+ win team is possible isn't a plausible challenge.

[majesty95]

Does the CPU see ratings you see are are they absolute? Meaning do they see things on a 1-100 scale and how you choose to see them only affects your difficulty?

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by majesty95

So I’ve long wondered why I struggle so much compared to so many I see on here and I think I’ve figured it out. My settings make it much harder on me than normal. Here’s a look at what I do if you want to give it a go.

Coaches: OFF (I think it’s too easy to manipulate this to your advantage over the AI. Plus it’s time consuming.)

Scouting: OFF (Same reason. Too easy to fleece the AI and stack up the best scouting department.)

Players personalities, chemistry, etc: OFF (I play historicals and I hate trying to edit these to match my expectations of real life. Plus it can be a pain to try and keep all your teams happy. I like it but I don’t so I keep them off.)

Trading draft picks: OFF (I think this is the single easiest way to fleece the AI on top of not being a thing in MLB so I always have that off.)

Overall and potential: 20/80 scale (All ratings are on a 20/80 scale. This might be the only thing that’s easier a little. But it’s also much harder than seeing 1/100 or even 1/20.)

With these set like this it takes away most of the things I see people use to build super teams. I can having trading at +1 towards hard and it’s very challenging, especially with a mid-small market team (which is what I usually play with).

If you’re looking for a challenge or already play like this, let me know what you think of playing this way.

Is there an easy way to save and import export personality? i guess you have to do quick sim
and from what i can tell there is still no way to randomize personality.
pretty sure there will never be a way to see changes over time.

if you do historical, don't you already know the players, so you basically don't even need the scouts. That is the hardest thing i have with historical, which i love.
The only way around that is to turn dev on. However, the imported you season you start with will never have peak season potential ratings for players over 29 : (((( So if you import them on an off year, that is what you are stuck with.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by majesty95

But that’s the thing, you can’t really fleece the AI in a trade bc they see the actual ratings just like you. I’ve been able to find a few decent guys that turned out good but fleecing them is near impossible.

With 1-100 you know exactly what the player is. With 20-80 they could be n the low end of the raging and maybe not quite as a good as you expect (this happed A LOT).

The AI doesn’t handle coaches particularly well so it’s pretty easy to stack your coaching staff. Scouting I’m not sure how big the advantage is bc I hated getting guys I thought were good but weren’t.

Part of me likes the simplicity of not having coaches and scouts but it’s damn hard to win. Especially as a small market team.

Now I gotta figure out how to make money lol

<<With 1-100 you know exactly what the player is. With 20-80 they could be n the low end of the raging and maybe not quite as a good as you expect (this happed A LOT).
>>
is that true???
i just thought it was finer graded scale.

[GoPedro99]

Originally Posted by fredbeene

<<With 1-100 you know exactly what the player is. With 20-80 they could be n the low end of the raging and maybe not quite as a good as you expect (this happed A LOT).
>>
is that true???
i just thought it was finer graded scale.

well, technically, no, 1-100 is not perfect. the internal ratings are on a 1-200(really 250) scale. it would be very accurate, but not perfect

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by fredbeene

Is there an easy way to save and import export personality? i guess you have to do quick sim
and from what i can tell there is still no way to randomize personality.
pretty sure there will never be a way to see changes over time.

if you do historical, don't you already know the players, so you basically don't even need the scouts. That is the hardest thing i have with historical, which i love.
The only way around that is to turn dev on. However, the imported you season you start with will never have peak season potential ratings for players over 29 : (((( So if you import them on an off year, that is what you are stuck with.

I used to play with recalc but I’ve been using the dev engine the past few years.

Does anyone know what the CPU AI uses with scouting off? Do they see the true ratings or just not what you see?

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by fredbeene

However, the imported season you start with will never have peak season potential ratings for players over 29.

This is not true. You can set player potentials to be based on the peak seasons of their careers or their remaining peak seasons, and those should be applied, although I only use remaining peak seasons, so I can't verify how it works if you base it on peak seasons of a player's entire career.

For example, I have a 1950 test game where all the player ratings were just created, using remaining peak seasons. When using the player editor to look at Joe Dobson, a starter for the Red Sox who is 33 years old, his potential ratings are significantly higher than his current ratings. They're clearly based on his future 1952 season, when he had his best ERA and WHIP of his career.

Similarly, Ellis Kinder, another starter on the same team, who is age 35, has potentials that are generally higher than his current ratings. They're nowhere as much higher as I would expect based on his remaining peak seasons. But those seasons are when he converted to a reliever, so maybe OOTP is evaluating the stats a bit differently. Or maybe it's looking at multiple remaining peak seasons, and they're balancing out the one extremely strong year that he had during that range. Either way, his best peak season is yet to come in his real life stats, so it makes sense that his potential ratings are higher than the current, and that's what they are.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by majesty95

Does anyone know what the CPU AI uses with scouting off? Do they see the true ratings or just not what you see?

I don't believe that OOTP Developments has ever provided an official answer to this question. I have seen discussions suggesting that this question has remained deliberately unanswered.

If scouting is off, then presumably there is no reason for the AI not to see the same 100% accurate OSA ratings that the player sees. But I can't say for sure what is actually happening. Many people believe that the AI sees and evaluates player stats better than ratings, so that could still be a factor, even if the AI sees the actual ratings.

[cojo82]

I use the modern realistic injury setting. normal scouting accuracy with 20-80 ratings. 1-100 is cheating to be honest. gameplay is more satisfying when you don't cheat. tired of seeing some players on youtube and in the forums bragging about their team winning 100+ games 7-10 seasons in a row.

[smythejd]

Originally Posted by majesty95

So I’ve long wondered why I struggle so much compared to so many I see on here and I think I’ve figured it out. My settings make it much harder on me than normal. Here’s a look at what I do if you want to give it a go.

I am a long time OOTPer with a fictional league which exceeds 225 seasons. I play as the GM and have constantly tweaked the league setting to create a league which is very challenging but not impossible.

I agree with the OP about coaching and trading draft picks OFF. To easy to have a unrealistic advantage over the AI.

I take a different path in regard to scouting, it stays on but I have set the scouting budget and player development budget to zero - What this means to me is I get another view of player predictions but can not get advantages in player development. Also keep on player personalities (I play fictional, like to know more about players).

I set player ratings scale 1-5 with the stars. And the biggest challenge hurdle is Scouting Accuracy set to VERY LOW. I must say it is very frustrating when your 5 star 1st round draft pick underperforms and gradually loses his stars but that is very realistic to me.

When I settled on these settings, the game became very challenging.

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by smythejd

I am a long time OOTPer with a fictional league which exceeds 225 seasons. I play as the GM and have constantly tweaked the league setting to create a league which is very challenging but not impossible.

I agree with the OP about coaching and trading draft picks OFF. To easy to have a unrealistic advantage over the AI.

I take a different path in regard to scouting, it stays on but I have set the scouting budget and player development budget to zero - What this means to me is I get another view of player predictions but can not get advantages in player development. Also keep on player personalities (I play fictional, like to know more about players).

I set player ratings scale 1-5 with the stars. And the biggest challenge hurdle is Scouting Accuracy set to VERY LOW. I must say it is very frustrating when your 5 star 1st round draft pick underperforms and gradually loses his stars but that is very realistic to me.

When I settled on these settings, the game became very challenging.

Whay Player Evaluation AI Settings do you use?

[smythejd]

Originally Posted by dutch alexander

whay player evaluation ai settings do you use?

30
50
15
5

[Dutch Alexander]

So the main focus is on stats. How is this working for you? Do you notice any downsides to AI behaviour? Just curious.

[smythejd]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

So the main focus is on stats. How is this working for you? Do you notice any downsides to AI behaviour? Just curious.

All seems to be ok. I believe I read somewhere that these would be a good setting so I went with it.

[Syd Thrift]

The TRUE super-hard version is that you have to make the computer suggest any trade deal and accept whatever it puts in. You can put a guy on the trading block or you can initiate a trade for someone but there's no putting players in and asking the AI if it's OK with that. At most, you ask the AI to suggest a deal and you decide if you want to go through with it or not. At worst, once you've clicked on "suggest", you go through with it. I don't even think you need to ramp up the difficulty here, especially if you go with the 2nd option.

There was a dynasty a few years ago that was based around a guy accepting every trade that was initiated. That was hilarious - IIRC the guy (whose name I should remember but sorry! I'm terrible with them!) had another dynasty where he was going around a historical league, winning a World Series with every team, and then moving on - but when he tried to do it with this one, he got stuck in constant mediocrity.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

The TRUE super-hard version is that you have to make the computer suggest any trade deal and accept whatever it puts in. You can put a guy on the trading block or you can initiate a trade for someone but there's no putting players in and asking the AI if it's OK with that. At most, you ask the AI to suggest a deal and you decide if you want to go through with it or not. At worst, once you've clicked on "suggest", you go through with it. I don't even think you need to ramp up the difficulty here, especially if you go with the 2nd option.

There was a dynasty a few years ago that was based around a guy accepting every trade that was initiated. That was hilarious - IIRC the guy (whose name I should remember but sorry! I'm terrible with them!) had another dynasty where he was going around a historical league, winning a World Series with every team, and then moving on - but when he tried to do it with this one, he got stuck in constant mediocrity.

May have been “Brennan”.