The Team Chemistry Experiment is Not Working

[webrian]

I suspect that *team chemistry* was idealized as a way to encourage PT'ers to develop more diverse teams.

It has had the exact opposite effect.

Every season, every league I'm put in is filled up with "Mission Card" teams. Everybody — and I mean **everybody** — has Chase Utley, King Kelly, Al Kaline, Ben Sheets, Corey Kluber, etc. on their active rosters.

Every team I play against is the same team. Some do better than others, but they all have 70 to 80 percent of the same roster. God, I'm sick of seeing Chase Utley everywhere.

It is difficult, and quite expensive, to try developing any other kind of theme team. The criteria makes sense, but I wish there were even more options. Unless you go with the popular "Mission Card" theme, it's difficult to build a competitive theme team. You run out of quality cards pretty fast.

I did think that, perhaps, a team using primarily "Hardware Heroes" and/or "All-Time Legends" or even "Future Legends" might work well. But these concepts do not help team chemistry. You either have to have a bunch of players from the same organization (especially former teammates) or go with the "Mission Cards" like everybody else.

I'm not doing this to see how my Al Kalines and Chase Utleys fare against somebody else's Al Kalines and Chase Utleys.

Is anyone on the OOTP25 development team looking into this?

[Wheatchex]

If I ran the circus, chemistry would be calculated using player attributes, but not card attributes. It makes no sense that two players have anything in common from being featured on the same card type.

If this were true, I predict it would mean that while the Mission Edition team would still be the standard issue base lineups for most people, chasing chemistry bonuses would start to make teams more diverse as they try to build chemistry between the Mission cards and the best cards they pulled or bought. Right now they punish diversity, although the newer cards are starting to break that up at higher league levels.

It's even worse for that combinators are a chemistry bonus as well. The non-combi version of those exact same players would have far lower chemistry, which means being overpowered is a theme, and again, that does not make sense.

(Rookie or NeL cards actually do suggest something in common, those make sense that the players would have a tiny bit more rapport, where being on a Snapshot or Hardware Heroes card is just totally arbitrary from the players PoV)

What if we phased out the Mission Edition chem bonus over the next month or two? Lower the bonus from +10 to zero, say, one point a week when new leagues populate?

[runyan99]

I completely agree with the previous poster, webrian.



Anecdotally, as far as I can tell, there is a +/- error in the code, such that chemistry makes your team worse, not better. Everyone who has made a high chemistry team seems to go to last place, and that's my experience.


I dropped my diamond/gold rewards team for a 50+% chemistry team of Cardinals and Orioles, and I am immediately in last place in a Gold league. The negative power of the chemistry is so strong that even Cal Ripken, who was consistently one of my best players in Diamond leagues is now putting up a 60 OPS+ in a Gold League.


If anyone wants to compete, I would advise them to use all the best individual cards, and to make your Chemistry score as low as possible. As implemented currently, Chemistry is a total and complete failure for enabling theme teams of any sort. But I'd like to see this adjusted and fixed for the future.

[runyan99]

Updating on my current experiment, my Gold league team with 3 Perfects and 19 diamonds is now the worst team in the league, with a -152 run differential, which is 84 runs worse than the next to last team.


Checking in on the three worst teams in the league, including mine, they have chemistry of 52.3%, 45.7%, and 45.9%.


The three best teams in the league minimize chemistry, at 15.1%, 11.8%, and 12.4%.


So, you're saying I get a bonus? How do you know it's working as intended at this point?

[LeeD]

It works, but 45% ain't nothin'. You've got to run in the blue (75%) to see real benefits from chemistry. Even then, significantly better cards will still beat you, and randomness (which I've always felt swings way too wide in PT) is still a big factor. It's a feature and not a game-beater like pitcher BABIP was last year.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by webrian

Every season, every league I'm put in is filled up with "Mission Card" teams. Everybody — and I mean **everybody** — has Chase Utley, King Kelly, Al Kaline, Ben Sheets, Corey Kluber, etc. on their active rosters.

That's just because these cards are in the sweet spot of high-level and great (relative to the lower leagues) cards tied to the easiest mission rewards. They are the first ones most people get organically as they come from completing Live Card sets.

[webrian]

I am currently all the way down in a BRONZE league (I hate to even admit this) and, with a team consisting of 19 Historical Perfect cards (100s) and 7 Historical Diamond cards, I am *barely* treading water at 46-42, 1.5 games back of the leader.

I think this puts to bed any notion that greater cards always win. I should not be struggling like this in a BRONZE league with those cards. I've spent around $1000 USD on cards the past month. I can't win 90 games in a BRONZE league.

I did try to "theme" my team. I populated it 75 to 80 percent with players from the late 1800s and early 1900s. I called them the AfterDark Deadballers. I tried my best to lean mostly toward All-Time Legend cards, thinking that would give me the lift. Nothing.

My current chemistry rating is 16.47 percent. A couple of months ago, I had a team of 66 percent chemistry. It consisted mostly of St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals players. I had to scrap the team because it always finished below .500.

I also check out other teams. As far as I can tell, unless someone has filled their roster with Mission cards, they're struggling to compete.

The chemistry algorithm just does not work. It needs to be taken apart and put back together again. And there most definitely needs to be more leeway for creativity.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by webrian

I am currently all the way down in a BRONZE league (I hate to even admit this) and, with a team consisting of 19 Historical Perfect cards (100s) and 7 Historical Diamond cards, I am *barely* treading water at 46-42, 1.5 games back of the leader.

I'm wondering what your fatigue settings are like:

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by bailey

I'm wondering what your fatigue settings are like:

Yes, I was generally wondering how anyone with 19 historical Perfects could be treading water in Bronze. There are some mediocre Perfects, but not enough to do this unless something else is seriously wrong. Could be constant fatigue or not enough pitchers (another fatigue issue) or four-man rotation (not workable without extreme tweaks) or terrible defense (like Appling at short, Pujols at third, Stenzel in center field, etc.). I've got a team with 3 Perfects, 20 Diamonds, and 3 Golds treading water in Diamond (54-49) right now. If it's not the cards then it must be something else. Really unusual strategy settings, like Steal, Running, and Hit-and-Run maxed, defensive Shifts at minimum, Hook Starters at minimum?

[runyan99]

Let's not focus on his Bronze team that is losing. Show me the high chemistry team that is winning anything above the Bronze level. Show me the positive proof.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by runyan99

Let's not focus on his Bronze team that is losing. Show me the high chemistry team that is winning anything above the Bronze level. Show me the positive proof.

The Diamond team I mentioned above is made up of Mission Rewards and nothing beyond (the third Perfect is Scott Sanders from the Padres Set, and he ain't no Andrew Painter). Team Chemistry 77%, in the Diamond playoff race despite clearly not being one of the best teams in terms of player overalls or ratings. It's my #3 team, and I'm just saving packs and PP for a decent mission set later in the cycle. Negro League is pretty good, but my #1 team is all over that right now. In the meantime, it's fun watching the Live Series guys go toe to toe with better players and lower chemistry.

Again, though, it's not a game-beater. You still need good cards (and the Live Series rewards are definitely more solid this year than in years past) and an effective strategy.

[runyan99]

Yes sir, but we have already established that the Mission Rewards team works. I think we really need to see something else that works before we declare Chemistry to be a success.

I am just starting a new experiment in the Draft Pool/Rookie league. I need to see some results for myself at the lowest levels with a 95%+ team.

[LeeD]

At the lowest levels, card quality is king because the spread between best and worst is so extreme. Not uncommon in Rookie league to see 100 Kluber facing off against Iron pitchers and hitters. I'm running a new team right now where Kluber is 18-1, 3.15 with Colorado Field as my ballpark...and he's my fifth-best starter! Painter, Jobe, McDowell, and Horton are also in the rotation. Team chemistry really doesn't matter when the average opposing pitcher is not even close to these guys (and yes, it's FTP).

[runyan99]

No, it's not a new account you have that's FTP. I have been playing since April, and I don't have Painter, Jobe or Horton. All your words are nonsense.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by runyan99

No, it's not a new account you have that's FTP. I have been playing since April, and I don't have Painter, Jobe or Horton. All your words are nonsense.

I'm sorry that you aren't very good at this game. Actually, since you just called me a liar, I'm not really sorry at all. Good-night now.

[runyan99]

Early experiment at the low levels seem to indicate Chemistry is working fine, or at least not detrimental.

I started a new account and put together an all Orioles team with the starting points available, which turned out to be more or less everyone but the live Diamonds. It's currently at 98% Chemistry. This team is going 36-22 in Entry Pool which seems perfectly reasonable, and competitive given the resources available.

However, it's clear to see this team has a low ceiling over time. If I had all the best Orioles cards, it's 1 or 2 Perfects and about 5 or 6 Diamonds. Beyond that, improving the team would mean choosing non-Orioles, which would gradually lower the Chemistry one player at a time until it's not a theme team at all, and it's back to Chase Utley, et al.

[webrian]

Good catch about default fatigue settings. I've never paid attention to mine because I trusted the AI manager on this. But just in case, I have set my default fatigue settings for 90 percent for benching batters, 0 for benching starting pitchers, and 65 percent for benching relievers (or not using them).

[webrian]

Originally Posted by LeeD

The Diamond team I mentioned above is made up of Mission Rewards and nothing beyond (the third Perfect is Scott Sanders from the Padres Set, and he ain't no Andrew Painter). Team Chemistry 77%, in the Diamond playoff race despite clearly not being one of the best teams in terms of player overalls or ratings. It's my #3 team, and I'm just saving packs and PP for a decent mission set later in the cycle. Negro League is pretty good, but my #1 team is all over that right now. In the meantime, it's fun watching the Live Series guys go toe to toe with better players and lower chemistry.

Again, though, it's not a game-beater. You still need good cards (and the Live Series rewards are definitely more solid this year than in years past) and an effective strategy.

===//

Thanks to a 9-game winning streak in September, my team managed to finish 88-74 and win our division by 2 games. More incredibly, we advanced all the way to Bronze World Series, but lost in six games.

We had the highest run differential in the league (+124) despite finishing -5 in the pythagorean comparison. So it indeed looks like a case of a team with talent but not enough chemistry.

I want chemistry! I think it's a wonderful idea. I just don't want to be forced to implement it the way 95 percent of the others are.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by webrian

===//

Thanks to a 9-game winning streak in September, my team managed to finish 88-74 and win our division by 2 games. More incredibly, we advanced all the way to Bronze World Series, but lost in six games.

We had the highest run differential in the league (+124) despite finishing -5 in the pythagorean comparison. So it indeed looks like a case of a team with talent but not enough chemistry.

I want chemistry! I think it's a wonderful idea. I just don't want to be forced to implement it the way 95 percent of the others are.

I think that real-life team chemistry is today's starting pitcher, but it is what it is. The devs wanted to do something for theme teams, and my Phillies theme team just won the World Series. So yay for chemistry even if I'm dubious about the concept.

[webrian]

Originally Posted by LeeD

I think that real-life team chemistry is today's starting pitcher, but it is what it is. The developers wanted to do something for theme teams, and my Phillies theme team just won the World Series. So yay for chemistry, even if I'm dubious about the concept.

===//

Okay, gang. I'm going ALL IN on the Team Chemistry Experiment.

I'm getting promoted to Silver after losing the Bronze World Series. However, I've retooled 95 percent of my team. I have filled it with Kansas City Royals players, except for a few key positions where I really needed top-flight players.

My team chemistry is a whopping 84 percent! I had to make some painful sacrifices to get there. However, I'm still able to keep top flight (100) players such as SPs Jackson Jobe (future legend), Shane Bieber (Baseball-Ref), Sam McDowell (Legends), Dizzy Trout (Baseball-Ref), and ace relievers Mariano Rivera (HH), Jonathan Broxton (Baseball-Ref), as well as:

C Yogi Berra (99, Baseball-Ref)
1B John Reilly (100) -- This card is unbelievably stacked, with incredible power + speed ratings.
2B Yank Robinson (100) an on-base-percentage GOAT, and ...
LF Albert Belle (98, Baseball-Ref)

All the other players are KC Royals. I'm going to stick with this team all week in Silver and see how it does. 84 percent chemistry should be a can't-miss at the Silver Level. But I sure have been wrong before.