Do All New Leagues Begin with declining offense???

[OldFatGuy]

Wow, this is the final patched, OOTPX game, and I can't believe this hasn't been noticed before.

I noticed the problem in OOTP8, and posted about it here. Now that that league is toast, I've been starting to really try and figure out how to setup my OOTPX league.

Well, the first thing I did, was create a league EXACTLY like the OOTP8 league, structure wise, and sim some seasons. This is with NO changes to LCM's, LTM's, NONE, NADA, ZIP. Default LCM's and LTM's.

And the same thing happened. As you can see, in this OOTPX league, the batting averages have fallen from roughly .270 a year in both leagues to the low to mid .250's consistantly.

I know this isn't HUGE, but it's not insignificant either, and I cannot believe no one else has noticed this. Do ALL leagues have this problem at the beginning??? WTF??

If all leagues don't have this problem, what would cause it??? Like I said, I just setup a new, fictional, custom league with 24 teams (4 six team divisions), used default settings all, and simmed 23 years.

Has no one else noticed this obvious problem?? I simply can't beleive that. Are players too good at creation (offensively) or are players generated too poor (offensively) or are pitchers too poor at creation or too good when generated???

SOMETHING is changing. I've seen it in 2 leagues now, the exact same thing. It makes comparing later careers to early careers tough. I know that in real life we have that same problem, but man I thought with this game if we wanted to set it up so that year 1 is comparable with year 100, then we could do that. And I thought by starting with default settings and never changing them that this would be one way to do that.

Anyone????

[damientheomen3]

I have seen the same thing quite often, because the game creates several very good offensive players for the inaugural draft, but I have found somewhat of a way to counteract this, but it recquires you to not use feeders. If you have, let's say, a 10 round first year player draft, having the game generate, say, 11 rounds' worth of players would limit the talent, but having it create 15-20 rounds' worth of players adds more quality hitters into the talent pool. Maybe you could do this with feeders too, if you have more teams, it'd make more really good players, but I'm not too sure. In my most recent league, through 7 seasons, I've been using this method (generating 10 rounds' worth of players for a 5 round draft), and batting averages have stayed relatively consistent, moving up and down between .255 and .265.

[RchW]

I mentioned this too in OFG's other thread.

My post

[Tullius]

I have tested my settings in a 75 year sim and in the long run all was balanced. I would suggest that you do the same. There are periods (10 -20 years) when the pendulum was very strong in one direction but then it came back.

10 -20 years are too short to draw conclusions.

Generayll i have the feeling that in fantasy leagues where all is starting from scratch the hitters have an advantage and pitchers are often punched (esp. at the start). I had already a 29 - 8 game in my first season.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

Wow, this is the final patched, OOTPX game, and I can't believe this hasn't been noticed before.

I noticed the problem in OOTP8, and posted about it here. Now that that league is toast, I've been starting to really try and figure out how to setup my OOTPX league.

Well, the first thing I did, was create a league EXACTLY like the OOTP8 league, structure wise, and sim some seasons. This is with NO changes to LCM's, LTM's, NONE, NADA, ZIP. Default LCM's and LTM's.

And the same thing happened. As you can see, in this OOTPX league, the batting averages have fallen from roughly .270 a year in both leagues to the low to mid .250's consistantly.

I know this isn't HUGE, but it's not insignificant either, and I cannot believe no one else has noticed this. Do ALL leagues have this problem at the beginning??? WTF??

If all leagues don't have this problem, what would cause it??? Like I said, I just setup a new, fictional, custom league with 24 teams (4 six team divisions), used default settings all, and simmed 23 years.

Has no one else noticed this obvious problem?? I simply can't beleive that. Are players too good at creation (offensively) or are players generated too poor (offensively) or are pitchers too poor at creation or too good when generated???

SOMETHING is changing. I've seen it in 2 leagues now, the exact same thing. It makes comparing later careers to early careers tough. I know that in real life we have that same problem, but man I thought with this game if we wanted to set it up so that year 1 is comparable with year 100, then we could do that. And I thought by starting with default settings and never changing them that this would be one way to do that.

Anyone????

Another solution that I employ is to run the simulation for 30 years. One the big bang players are gone I then erase all league history and start from there.

Seems to do the trick.

[robc]

Your league batting averages actually start pretty close to historical ones and follows the trend downwards. Your totals just didn't have some of the upward blips that occurred in real life.

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by robc

Your league batting averages actually start pretty close to historical ones and follows the trend downwards. Your totals just didn't have some of the upward blips that occurred in real life.

It's not a historical league. It's a league based on modern day settings (LCM's, LTM's and strategy) are all set to 2008 (or 2009??? memory is hard to recall which year was the last on the choices during league setup).

1901 is just a start date, that's all.

And Rob, thanks again, as I said in the other thread, I really don't know what the right settins are for number of rounds. I thought I read on these forums that 5 X the number of minor leagues is about right. And I noticed when I set this league (with reserve roster, no minors), that it defaulted to 5 rounds (generating players for 6).

What would you change it to?? And I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why increasing the talent level by increasing the number of rounds only affects hitting???? Why wouldn't the pitchers get equally as improved??

Sorry, I know I'm probably asking dumb questions, but I'm learning I didn't understand at all the stuff I thought I understood with this game. It really is a lot to learn. I'm still not getting my OOTPX league setup the way I want it. At this point I think I would pay someone to set it up for me.

[robc]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

It's not a historical league. It's a league based on modern day settings (LCM's, LTM's and strategy) are all set to 2008 (or 2009??? memory is hard to recall which year was the last on the choices during league setup).

1901 is just a start date, that's all.

And Rob, thanks again, as I said in the other thread, I really don't know what the right settins are for number of rounds. I thought I read on these forums that 5 X the number of minor leagues is about right. And I noticed when I set this league (with reserve roster, no minors), that it defaulted to 5 rounds (generating players for 6).

What would you change it to?? And I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why increasing the talent level by increasing the number of rounds only affects hitting???? Why wouldn't the pitchers get equally as improved??

Sorry, I know I'm probably asking dumb questions, but I'm learning I didn't understand at all the stuff I thought I understood with this game. It really is a lot to learn. I'm still not getting my OOTPX league setup the way I want it. At this point I think I would pay someone to set it up for me.

Unfortunately I don't know a lot in this area. For some reason I was thinking it was a fictional league based on the same historical year. Maybe in OOTP 11 I'll have to sit down and try and figure it out. I have always just done historical leagues and haven't messed with the settings.

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

It's not a historical league. It's a league based on modern day settings (LCM's, LTM's and strategy) are all set to 2008 (or 2009??? memory is hard to recall which year was the last on the choices during league setup).

1901 is just a start date, that's all.

And Rob, thanks again, as I said in the other thread, I really don't know what the right settins are for number of rounds. I thought I read on these forums that 5 X the number of minor leagues is about right. And I noticed when I set this league (with reserve roster, no minors), that it defaulted to 5 rounds (generating players for 6).

What would you change it to?? And I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why increasing the talent level by increasing the number of rounds only affects hitting???? Why wouldn't the pitchers get equally as improved??

Sorry, I know I'm probably asking dumb questions, but I'm learning I didn't understand at all the stuff I thought I understood with this game. It really is a lot to learn. I'm still not getting my OOTPX league setup the way I want it. At this point I think I would pay someone to set it up for me.

More great hitters get added to the equation than great pitchers. I use the exact same setup (no minors, reserve rosters, 5 round draft) in my newest league, and I generate 10 rounds' worth of players. It may not be your taste though, as you'd be able to get 2 star potential players in the 5th round and see a few 2 stars not even get drafted.

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by robc

Unfortunately I don't know a lot in this area. For some reason I was thinking it was a fictional league based on the same historical year. Maybe in OOTP 11 I'll have to sit down and try and figure it out. I have always just done historical leagues and haven't messed with the settings.

Whoops. Sorry. I said Rob in my post but I meant Rich (RchW). He was the one that originally suggested the number of rounds might affect this, and now I see another one just above this one that says the same thing.

I'll play around with it as I'm setting up my league (assuming I EVER get that right, I'm beginning to think I won't *sigh*)

Anyways, thanks for all the suggestions folks. Really appreciate it.

[old timer]

Never mind... After rereading the first post, I realized what I asked couldn't be the cause.

[cbbl]

Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn

Another solution that I employ is to run the simulation for 30 years. One the big bang players are gone I then erase all league history and start from there.

Seems to do the trick.

Hmmm ... does this have any ill-efects? Does all trace of the league disappear (for example team history)? Are all players released to the freee agent pool? What happens to the stats of the players that played and retired? Do you delete them to expunge their existence?

I'm curious, as I've never used the erase league history option before.

[Honorable_Pawn]

All you are erasing is statisitacl history. All theplayers remain the same.

Its in the same menu as "fill teams with fictional players, edit schedule, AI control roster etc etc etc"