Clumping Issues Have Gotten Worse

[Ksyrup]

I plan to sim 20-25 years to run as a test of the new patch against my previous 25 year test-sim, and already 6 years in, I'm experiencing the "clumping" issue that occurred previously at around the 15th and subsequent years. The 'fix' seems to be making matters worse, not better. Now, instead of a crop of superstar players originally created with the league, who, upon fading out 15 or so years later are replaced by a group of good but not great players, I'm getting good but not great players almost immediately. In 2007, for example, the leading hitter was at .330 and best pitcher's ERA was at 2.59. This is like 2020 in my previous test-sim.

I'm not sure what was done to improve player development, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. I'll be simming some more next week, and may start a second league just to see if the same numbers are being generated, but at this point, I'm seeing an acceleration of the existing problem, not a fix.

[alhill]

I've noticed clumping to, as the original dispersal draft players retire and our replaced by amateur draft players.

The problem seems to be that original players more commonly have their hitting ratings go over 10, while for drafted players, with brilliant talent, their ratings will normally max out at 9 or 10. Thus you lose your superstud star typle players, the bonds and mcguires of the world.

Thus, the engine does a good job give you all ranges of player abililty except for the highest percentile type players.

I would be interested in seeing a test as to the percentage of drafted players who have any rating go over 10 as opposed to the dispersal draft players.

[Steve Kuffrey]

K, How far have you played? I know that I simmed over 20 years with this update and got some fairly high number especially on the hitting side. I can't say that it was every year, but .370 and .380 were reached late into the test.

[newbie]

how can you say that? if you want a brilliant 13 home run slugger you have to have good minor league coaches, good scouting and you have to put points in it during spring training. your simming the whole league while its computer managed? maybe the computer doesnt want a lopsided 13 homerun talent they want a more rounded player. how can you possibly say that without taking a team for 20 years and developing your own players. all be it with good minor league coaches and a good scout. thats almost ludacris, the game is so open ended you can make a loser out of the amateur draft into a superstar. all you gotta do is try.

[Scott Vibert]

[quote]Originally posted by newbie:
<strong>how can you say that? if you want a brilliant 13 home run slugger you have to have good minor league coaches, good scouting and you have to put points in it during spring training. your simming the whole league while its computer managed? maybe the computer doesnt want a lopsided 13 homerun talent they want a more rounded player. how can you possibly say that without taking a team for 20 years and developing your own players. all be it with good minor league coaches and a good scout. thats almost ludacris, the game is so open ended you can make a loser out of the amateur draft into a superstar. all you gotta do is try.</strong><hr></blockquote>

No offense, but this post is for the most part uncalled for. I appreciate you wanting to defend OOTP4 in all its glory, but these two have posted a legitmate concern, something that should be looked at. If you have seen different results then you should definitely report them, but there is no need to post something that essentially ridicules the thread's starter.

I will look into this guys as well. (I've got lots to look at this weekend!) Maybe you just hit a rough patch and things will change.

[Subby]

[quote]Originally posted by ScottVib:
<strong>No offense, but this post is for the most part uncalled for. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Thanks Scott. That post was ludacris

[Andy]

Geez Scott, maybe you should take a vacation. Don't you ever play the game? Or do you always try to duplicate people's problems?

[Hammer755]

'I can't tell if I'm esthatic or ludacrith'

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: Hammer755 ]</p>

[Scott Vibert]

[quote]Originally posted by AK2KStang:
<strong>Geez Scott, maybe you should take a vacation. Don't you ever play the game? Or do you always try to duplicate people's problems? </strong><hr></blockquote>

Lately mostly trying to track down things and test patches, but with Markus on vacation so no patches to test for awhile, I should finally get some more time to really get my "for fun" league humming. I try to get in at least a few for fun games a week and I'm in a couple of online leagues, so I can get some fun stuff in there.

Really most of the time I try to duplicate a bug, its when it is something that I've heard others grumble about, but not in high enough numbers to prove conclusively that there is an issue, or if I think I might now why something is happening and want to test my theory. Lately I've gotten behind in all this stuff, since I've had a lot to do at work lately.

[Ksyrup]

Not that I necessarily need to respond to "newbie" (that's what he calls himself, that's not my name for him!), but let me just say that I will only be controlling one team, so even if I was to simulate 20 years controlling one team, I wouldn't want to see (or expect to see) my team as the only one developing great players. If that was the case, all of my players would lead the league in everything. So, it does matter what the AI does independent of my actual control of one team. Having the AI sim 19 teams or 20 teams doesn't change that fact.

OOTP1, I have admittedly only simmed 6 years so far. But, I got worried when I ran into relatively moderate averages and ERAs within the first six years, similar to what I experienced 20 years down the road in my original test-sim.

I changed the league settings in the hopes of creating a league with strong pitching, but not to the point of creating 1968 (I can't tell you what they are off-hand, but if you list the default numbers, I could probably tell you). So, the hitting numbers should come down some, but conversely, I would expect to see some pretty low ERAs among the "best of the best" pitchers. And that isn't happening. It did, however, happen for the first 10-15 years of the first test-sim I did - I had guys regularly hitting over .350 and guys with ERAs under 2 or right around 2. Then, after 15 years or so, clumping occurred. In six years with the new patch, I'm seeing what I saw in 2020 of the old patch/original game.

Specifically, for the first 2-3 years of this current sim, I had guys hitting .360-.380, a guy hit 67 HR, and at least one ERA I can recall of around 2.20. By 2006, the best average was around .338. In 2007, the best average was .330 - I looked at the league leaders list and there were at least 15 guys hitting .300, so it wasn't a matter of only a few guys hitting .300, they were just all hitting between .300 and .330. Same thing with ERA - 2.59, 2.60, and 2.63 wer the best ERAs.

I'm going away for the weekend (to see 'real' baseball!), but I'll be back next week and will continue to sim some more to see if this trend continues.

[JML]

[quote]Originally posted by Subby:
<strong>

Thanks Scott. That post was ludacris </strong><hr></blockquote>


albeit entertaining.

[Henry]

Just a crazy idea...

It seems "balancing" the game to the point that it produces enough star versus "slag" players is difficult at best. Maybe a "global" approach is needed, such as...

1. The game, after creating the initial group of players, takes some averages, ranges, etc. to "define" what this group of individuals looks like.

2. The game then sets a range (hidden of course) for each of these measurements... maybe plus and minus 20%.

3. When creating each new group of new players, the resulting "league" is measured again to see if it fits inside the ranges set previously - if not - the new players are "recreated" with an adjustment up or down, depending on what's needed.

I know this sounds like a lot of coding - and maybe isn't really necessary depending on how far off this really is - but approaching it from a global perspective allows the game to set for itself some limits it must work within....

comments ?

[eneubaue]

Ksyrup,

Are you resetting the league settings after every year or are you keeping the same settings year after year? It's been my experience that to alleviate some of the clumping problems, you need to reset the settings every year.

I know this may not be a solution for you, but what I do is modify one position player and one starting pitcher in the rookie draft as superstars and set their age to 20 (insuring that they will most likely have long, HOF careers). I then adjust the talent ratings for about 4 position players and 4 pitchers in the rookie draft so that they have a chance of becoming superstars or very good players. This helps with the clumping problem in that I have a steady influx of superstars/very good players every year.

Just my 2 cents...

[alhill]

Yeah just want to echo that I'm not complaining that I personally cant have a whole team of guys that are 14 in home runs. What I'd like to see is my league as a whole have a few guys that come through amateur drafts and become truly exceptional players. When you play a league for a long time you want guys in the universe who stand out just to add to the personality of the league. It's just as interesting to me to play against one of those super-elite players as to have one on my own team.

[Tiger Fan]

Ksyrup
I did some extensive testing the past week with a focus on this area and financials. I found things went in stages but there definately were some superstar performances in the half dozen or so 20-30 year sims I ran.

Give it a few more years and then let me know your results. In the testing I did I made no changes to the league settings at any time and just let the game play out. There were times when players would seem to bunch up but there were also times when there were 2 or 3 dominate performers as well. I found it is cyclical just like in real life.

I am at work right now so I dont have exact stats in from of me but I know for a fact I had one slugger dominate the league from years 20-25 hitting over 50 homers in most seasons with the second highest player usually 8-10 behind him. Likewise there were some dominating era and win totals posted by pitchers in the later years of my sim.

Keep us informed on your results.

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: Tiger Fan ]</p>

[Ben E Lou]

Add me to the list of those who agrees wholeheartedly with Ksyrup. At any given point in MLB History, there are/were 4 or 5 guys who stand head and shoulders above the rest and dominate. The fact that this is lacking long-term in OOTP4 gives the leagues a very "vanilla" feel.

[alhill]

My question at this point is merely from the ratings perspective: is there as much veriation in ratings in mature amateur drafted players as there is in dispersal draft players?

[Pastime Baseball]

Just a request for some of you (not to pick, but SkyDog's ;-) post got me thinking):

If you post about issues -- especially surrounding long-term player development -- with the latest patch, can you also say how many seasons you've simulated (like Ksyrup did)?

It was hard to tell from SkyDog's post if he/you have simulated over 10+ seasons with the current patch, basing comments on the previous patch, or are going off of other posts.

I say this because I haven't tested with the latest patch and it would be nice to know the origins of such a statement.

Thanks,
Steve

[Ksyrup]

eneubaue,

Mmanually modifying a number of rookies is certainly a work-around, but frankly, one I am not willing to do. The game needs to function correctly on its own at that level - if I have to essentially create a number of rookies each year, then the game basically doesn't have a rookie generator. That type of labor-intensive fix is one of the reasons I wasn't able to enjoy previous versions of this game (like the manual financial fixes suggested for OOTP3), and the principal reason I probably will never try a historical sim. I understand that will work, but I personally will not spend that much time just getting the game to where I can play it.

I also don't want to reset the league settings every year, as I will only be trying to correct a perceived problem that existed last year by fixing this year's numbers. This will probably lead to years with team ERAs under 3 or over 5. I want something a bit more even-keeled. Trying to set league settings that way is like trying to determine homeowners insurance rates based solely on the last hurricane to hit a particular area.

Sorry, that was some other part of my life creeping into this fanasty world!

Admittedly, I only played 6 seasons, but I intend on simming a full 20-30 and will report my results. I was just comparing my results after 6 years with what I saw previously, and I saw a definite pattern I did not like. I'm hoping that I was prematurely sounding the alarm bell.

[Tiger Fan]

I personally have found this much improved with the new patch. Here are some results from a 22 year sim I just completed.

I am seeing some superstar rookies develop in my test sims. The latest league was run today with the newest patch over 22 seasons. I selected Baseball's Rebirth (1921-45) as my era setting and left all league settings at the default the league started with. I did not hit recalculate or change anything except to set the amateur draft for 8 rounds and team cash max to $50 million. I let the cpu gm's handle everything for all teams in my league and had several superstars emerge in the later years.

Here are a couple of examples of dominant fictional players that were draft picks in my test league.

Arlie Pink
Drafted in the first round, 3rd overall in year 7 of my league. He made 9 allstar teams and was a 5 time MVP so far in his career. Pink also holds the single season batting record with a .396 mark set in year 14. Btw, that year the second highest average was .337. However, the previous season he won the batting title by .002. He was dominant in year 15 winning the League 1 title by over .030. He is presently 35 years old and still has a couple good years ahead.
<pre><font size="2">
CAREER STATS :

YEAR AVG HR RBI G AB H 2B 3B R SB CS BB K OBP SLG TEAMS
1948 .286 7 31 102 308 88 12 0 38 8 3 42 37 .371 .393 GRA
1949 .320 19 94 150 507 162 23 1 83 14 2 95 44 .427 .481 GRA,L2
1950 .326 23 82 149 543 177 18 4 82 10 4 80 54 .413 .501 GRA
1951 .364 34 108 149 528 192 22 4 108 11 4 97 46 .462 .614 GRA,L2
1952 .368 34 102 137 524 193 18 1 93 19 2 76 41 .448 .601 GRA
1953 .376 43 114 152 574 216 22 4 114 14 4 75 65 .448 .653 GRA,L2
1954 .396 42 112 131 498 197 23 4 116 9 4 61 53 .462 .711 GRA
1955 .379 43 134 152 556 211 21 2 122 15 3 87 59 .463 .656 GRA,L2
1956 .373 28 83 136 512 191 24 3 121 15 3 85 64 .462 .596 GRA,L2
1957 .342 28 86 139 532 182 21 3 107 13 4 81 66 .429 .551 GRA,L2
1958 .333 25 85 152 586 195 29 2 107 13 4 80 72 .413 .517 GRA,L2
1959 .364 32 103 153 580 211 21 2 133 13 4 91 64 .450 .572 GRA,L2
1960 .291 15 66 154 585 170 26 0 113 16 4 111 86 .404 .412 GRA,L2
1961 .346 25 111 151 567 196 36 0 94 11 3 85 81 .431 .541 GRA
1962 .325 19 88 137 510 166 14 1 103 10 1 91 67 .437 .469 GRA


Total AB : 7910
Total AVG : .347 3rd All time
Total Hits: 2747 1st All time
Total HR : 417 18th all time
Total RBI : 1399 11th all time
Total Runs: 1534 3rd all time
Total SB : 191
</pre></font>

Here is a pitcher who has similiarly dominated my league.

Fernando Cruz
Drafted in the 2nd round, 31st overall in year 3, Cruz has been named pitcher of the year on 5 occassions. He also made 12 allstar teams and won an amazing 19 decisions in a row during a 30 win campaign in 1954 (year 14). His 302 career victories are 29 more than the number 2 man on the list.
<pre><font size="2">
CAREER STATS :

YEAR ERA W L S G CG SHO IP ER BB K TEAMS
1947 4.17 6 5 1 22 9 0 105.2 49 54 92 BOS
1948 2.89 21 9 0 32 26 4 264.2 85 95 187 BOS,L1
1949 2.77 26 7 0 35 30 3 298.2 92 111 215 BOS,L1
1950 2.38 26 10 0 39 30 6 328.1 87 109 232 BOS,L1
1951 2.82 15 8 0 29 18 1 217.1 68 77 148 BOS,L1
1952 3.08 20 7 0 30 24 5 251.2 86 66 160 BOS,L1
1953 3.28 24 12 0 39 29 5 329.2 120 99 226 BOS,L1
1954 2.23 30 3 0 38 29 5 318.1 79 115 198 BOS,L1
1955 2.35 22 9 0 39 28 4 329.1 86 105 209 BOS,L1
1956 2.89 22 5 0 36 18 3 280.2 90 118 294 BOS,L1
1957 2.97 19 10 0 36 25 2 297.1 98 81 271 BOS
1958 3.09 19 14 0 39 27 8 308.1 106 105 314 BOS,L1
1959 2.39 23 6 0 36 21 3 282.1 75 110 280 BOS,L1
1960 2.73 21 10 0 38 28 6 306.2 93 76 283 BOS,L1
1961 4.55 8 7 0 21 10 0 138.1 70 53 130 BOS
1962 6.75 0 2 1 9 0 0 21.1 16 14 9 BOS

Total ERA : 2.87 3rd All time
Total Wins : 302 1st All time
Total Losses: 124
Total Saves : 2
Total SHO : 55 1st all time
Total CG : 352 4th all time
Total K's : 3248 5th all time
Total BB's : 1388
</pre></font>

I could also post the stats of the all time stolen base king and 2 time MVP Dennis Dover, one of the three players to smash 50 homers in the past 6 seasons or my single season strike out king, pitcher Gerald Borkowski - all entered the league after the initial season.

Perhaps it is because I am using a different era than the modern era but I am simply not seeing the problems that Ksyrup speaks of with this patch. I agree it was a concern with pre-patch leagues but it seems much improved in my mind.

Another concern voiced prior to this patch was that the league stats would not stay consistant. (I believe the concern was it became too much of a hitters league but I cant remember off hand for sure). This was tested extensively by myself and others with the new patch the past couple of days and I think the results are now quite good. Here are the league totals for Years 2, 10 and 22 in this sim.

<pre><font size="2">
Batting Average ERA HR
Year 2 .258 4.29 2952
Year 10 .252 4.39 3104
Year 22 .256 4.49 3086
</pre></font>

Extremly good results imo. Again, I was using the 1920-45 era setting with 16 teams, 154 game schedule and no DH. I also made absolutely no changes at all to the league totals/era settings.


Again, I am not disputing the results that Ksyrup and a couple of others say they are seeing. I am simply showing the results I had in a 22 year sim with the new patch.

[ March 16, 2002: Message edited by: Tiger Fan ]</p>