[RchW]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

What I have noticed is that, in the past, fictional players would raise all kind of heck if the stats for the era they were playing in were screwed up for their league, so Markus had to get things as historically accurate for the fictional stats to be as realistic as possible, yet for people who use real players for historical replays, players who stats are real and were created in any real season or era, well, we are supposed to accept, according to those same people, ridiculously screwed up results. The same kind of results they would not accept.

Apples and oranges. Historical players get upset when a name they know does much worse than they did IRL. Or a name they don't know does well. There are other reasons obviously but for the most part historical hackles get raised when individual (team too?) results don't meet the expectations of that year or set of years.

You already stipulated in another post that the era specific league totals are generally close to the mark**. The issue then becomes one of a dynamic sim (OOTP) vs a static replay of historical results. I thought recalc was supposed to push historicals towards the static model but I'm not a pure historical simmer so I don't use recalc.

Markus' use of "Improved Historical Simulation" is completely valid as OOTPD has never claimed to be a static replay sim. Even if you dispute that, the use of "puffery" in marketing and sales claims is legitimate.

If Markus has in fact made programming and structural changes that "show" better results by his and/or beta testing the claim becomes more legit and less "puffery".

StyxNCa ** The overall league stats always seem to look good, so that part is pretty accurate.

fictional players would raise all kind of heck if the stats for the era they were playing in were screwed up for their league, so Markus had to get things as historically accurate for the fictional stats to be as realistic as possible,

Markus gets league totals close. It's not possible to claim any accuracy for individual fictional stats where league structure, set up and strategy is determined by the gamer. Most gripes about outrageous stats can be traced to out of whack league settings. My ongoing gripe is that the default settings in the game do not come close to modern MLB totals. Over the last 3.5 versions I've spent considerable time adjusting league total modifiers, including all minor leagues, player creation, player development and aging, league strategy and so on. To give only one example, double plays often need to be increased by 40% or more via LTM to produce correct results for a modern MLB league.

Doing this I came to realize that the real strength of this game is its volatility. As an example, I wanted modern MLB stats but starting pitcher CG from the 70's. The result is a complete change in MR use compared to the modern game. That's strictly my problem, not OOTP's. If the game were to be "tightened up" to reduce this volatility it may lose some flexibility. I decided to live with it, even though I'd like things to be easier to change.

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

yet for people who use real players for historical replays, players who stats are real and were created in any real season or era, well, we are supposed to accept, according to those same people, ridiculously screwed up results.

To me there is a structural difference in player creation between fictional leagues and historical leagues that may explain this. I imagine that fictional players are created in one large pool that is "fitted" (bell curve) to the league set up. This may allow for a better (smoother) distribution of ratings at league creation.

Historical players are constructed one at a time (I think) from the database or from a roster set. I wonder if the game gets out of whack when it calculates ratings that don't match its internal league structure "fit". Is it possible that some players get modified to satisfy this structure. This is pure speculation on my part.