Please, Oh Please, Fix This.

[OldFatGuy]

I have been searching and searching for the one great baseball sim. And just when I think I've found it, I run across this TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME. Same thing in another sim I just tried for the first time last year, THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM. UNREALISTIC HANDLING OF DRAFT PICKS. I'm sorry, but I've been following MLB for a long, long time, and I can't recall ONE, NOT ONE, instance in my long life of a player getting drafted in the MLB draft one day, and playing (much less starting) the next. Yet it happened WAAAAAYYY too often in BM (the game I tried last year), and now I've seen it EVERY TIME I've run through the draft in OOTP. See below. A pitcher is drafted one day, and is the starting pitcher for the MLB club THE VERY NEXT DAY.

Nope, sorry, it just doesn't happen. And this really loses it for me. BM has a REAL and CONTINUING problem with how it handles draft picks, and I guess I'm learning OOTP has the same problem.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to add my pics. My bad.
Man, why oh why can they improve the chess AI (and believe me that took years too) to give the best pros a true test yet baseball AI (both in game in AI and roster management AI) NEVER seems to improve.

Sorry, OOTP has me for now, much like BM had me last year (the last game I played for 10 years was was FPS Baseball Pro) and I just keep looking for improvements. And there have been some. The simplicity of BM has me so impressed I can hardly contain myself, I was able to be up and playing a meaningful season within hours of install. The depth of OOTP has me so impressed I can hardly contain myself as it has almost everything anyone could dream of in a baseball sim.

BUT WHERE, OH WHERE, is the AI???? Imagine, I mean, really, close your eyes and just imagine, a baseball sim with all of the depth and flexibility of OOTP 8 PLUS an AI that makes news because actual MLB teams are using it to supplement their personnel decisions. I mean, really, just imagine that. Real life opposing team trades, roster decisions, financial decisions, and in game decisions. To give you another example of AI weakness (and that was the same in FPS Baseball, in BM, and in OOTP), I play out all of my games in PBP one pitch mode. On SEVERAL occasions, with a league with NO DH, I've had a lead of more than one run, with the opposing team batting in their last inning, and they DON'T PINCH HIT FOR THEIR PITCHER). I could post game logs if necessary.

Sorry, its late, I've truly fallen in love with OOTP (after a waaaayyyy tooooo long learning curve, man this game is hard to learn but worth it once you do), but I'm also SOOOOO disappointed that NO BASEBALL sim seems to get the AI right. I am reminded of the first years of chess games, when the AI couldn't give anyone a real fight. But they improved it, and after more years, it could give the casual player a real challenge, but the pros could still run circles around it. Then, after a few more years, it could give even the pros a real challenge, and finally, well, we all remember big blue finally becoming a true world champ. Why is there no real effort at baseball AI like this?????????????

Sorry again. An old man's rant.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to add my pics.

[RchW]

Not a pitcher and not the next day but Olerud played as soon as he was signed.

John Olerud Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com

There must be some setting or player creation number off. I've played hundreds of seasons and never had a draft choice play right away. That is with modern day baseball league totals.

I'm not minimizing your problem but something is off. What are his ratings?

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by RchW

What are his ratings?

Here are his ratings, sorry, I don't know enough yet on how to make the impage smaller yet still contain ALL the info. When I tried to save it into a 640X480, it did, but it did it by CUTTING the image off. Sorry, I'm not real "puterlitrate"

EDIT: Michael Smith is my head scout, with 20-19-18 ratings of SH-SP-SF. 1-20 range.

[RchW]

That's a total mystery to me. He should be nowhere near the majors. Are all the starters on Baltimore 1 star rated? Thats the only way he could start IMO.

What are your AI preferences in game set up?

[blackrussian]

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

Why is there no real effort at baseball AI like this?????????????

Originally Posted by OldFatGuy

. Why is there no real effort at baseball AI like this?????????????

i have to seriously disagree w/you that there has been no effort at improving the AI. the game has come a long way since its inception. and while it lacks sophistication in a number of areas at the moment really doesnt do justice to the complexity of the game and the ability of the game to handle (IMO very well in many cases) rather complicated decisions.

i dont know if chess is a good comparison. baseball, in terms of both in game decisions and more player management oriented functions, have considerably more variables to address.

in terms of these #1 draft picks appearing in the majors right away? not a problem i have run across to often in my sims. ive ran a number of sims just to see how draft picks have fared and not too many draft picks are pitching in the majors right after their selection. i cant really guess what kind of setup youre using in terms of # of minor leagues, creating modifiers, etc but that can have a significant factor in having the AI decide where to place it's newer draftees.

there will be always be room for improvement w/the game AI. fortunately, we have seen incremental improvements in nearly every version and for the most part the game is easily on par with other sims. perhaps DMB comes close, but at the expense of everything else since there is nothing resembling a GM AI in that game.

[Kelric]

With the ratings he has, as RchW said, that guy should be nowhere near the majors. How bad are the rest of the Orioles?

I'm very, very surprised to see that guy getting big league time.

Edit - Also... this is why we have online leagues. Humans are (usually) smarter.

[SSG Troyer]

The only possible explaination I can see is the year -- 1901. This game was just started, and we don't know what the quality of initial draft class was, or if there was one. If the squads were empty and the AI left to sign generic free agents, this could happen. Also, what is the structure of the universe? If there are no minors, this could happen, especially in the initial year. There are several explainations, but the beta testers just aren't given enough information to track this down.

[myasu]

Things like this happen very often in Japan.

Matsuzaka was in the rotation for Seibu Lions as soon as his rookie season started, and he is one of many to do that.

Back to the subject...

As mentioned above, I think you should check out

1. Ratings of the other Orioles starting pitchers
2. Ratings of all the SPs in the leagues

There must be a reason for this, as I have never seen something like this.

[Syd Thrift]

IIRC both Pete Incaviglia and Bob Horner went straight from the draft to the big leagues. It's rare but it does happen. Maybe there could be some sort of algorithm that states that a player won't be available on June 16 but instead will "sign" at a randomly determined date, but that opens up more issues (chiefly, that it would require GMs to micromanage their low minors every day that a draftee signs rather than being able to get everything out of the way all at once). Again a case where pure realism might not be the direction the game ought to go.

[NCBeachBum]

All told, there have been five players who went from the draft to the bigs without a stop in the minors: the aformentioned Molitor, Horner, and Incaviglia, and Ozzie Smith and Dave Winfield.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by NCBeachBum

All told, there have been five players who went from the draft to the bigs without a stop in the minors: the aformentioned Molitor, Horner, and Incaviglia, and Ozzie Smith and Dave Winfield.

Pete Broberg in 1971 and David Clyde in 1973. Both pitchers.

Broberg was drafted on June 7 and started his first game on June 20.

Clyde was drafted on June 5 and started his first game on June 27.

[Cooleyvol]

This definitely has to do with the year and most likely, the ratings of the ML pitchers on this club.

I've played literally hundreds of seasons using OOTP over the past 7 years and I've NEVER seen this happen.

[senorcoo]

Mike Morgan did as well back in the 70's, IIRC.

[whizkid1950]

Depending on the options you use when creating your universe, the 1901 talent pool tends to be very thin. Both times I've started from that date I went into the draft looking for guys who could play immediately, and even though their ratings were poor they were better than what I had on my initial roster.

[enuttage]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

IIRC both Pete Incaviglia and Bob Horner went straight from the draft to the big leagues. It's rare but it does happen. Maybe there could be some sort of algorithm that states that a player won't be available on June 16 but instead will "sign" at a randomly determined date, but that opens up more issues (chiefly, that it would require GMs to micromanage their low minors every day that a draftee signs rather than being able to get everything out of the way all at once). Again a case where pure realism might not be the direction the game ought to go.

Oddibe, baby! Oddibe!

[hyde4us11]

Xavier Nady did as well.

[CHCfan]

Originally Posted by hyde4us11

Xavier Nady did as well.

Thanks for that. I had no idea. Interesting story -- he was drafted on 9/17/00 and played his first game with the padres just two weeks later, going 1-1 with a single and a run scored in the padres' second-to-last game of the year. Xavier started the next season in the minors, and stayed there until coming back up for good in 2003.

[OldFatGuy]

Well, somehow the discussion got from a weak AI to all the examples anyone can think of in the history of MLB to make it the majors immediately. Yet, not one included a guy being drafted one day and in the starting lineup the next. Besides, even if there WERE examples of this in MLB history, it doesn't change the fact that THIS PITCHER SHOULD NOT BE THERE (look at his ratings). The fact is I just looked at BOTH the free agent list AND Baltimore's financial report, AND there are dozens and dozens available with at least journeyman type ratings available IF Baltimore (or any other team for that matter) needs them. To answer questions about startup, my startup date is 1901 but my Player Creation Modifiers were all 1's, I just chose the start date as 1901. It is moronic AI, just like I see in ALL baseball sims. And to be fair, this one is probably the best, but baby that bar is LOOOOWW.

Again, I'll harp on the chess example. The first SEVERAL generations of chess games had AI that only challenged the casual player. It wasn't until someone decided to put in the time and effort to really develop the best chess AI ever devised that the AI improved. In baseball sims, IT SEEMS TO ME, developers spend the first release on the nuts and bolts, like AI, then THAT AI gets tweaked here and there over the next releases but mostly the next releases are more about new features and new bells and whistles. Now I will post ONE example of the AI letting the pitcher hit in the ninth inning while trailing. I've seen this several times and only had to go back to my third game to find the first example. If anyone wants me to post ALL of the examples, be glad to. The bottom line is the AI is so weak for in game decisions (and I don't mean weaker than the baseball sims, I mean ALL baseball sims have weak AI) that the only real way to avoid such idiotic happenings is to have the DH. So much for play it your way.

Again, I'm still pleased with OOTP 8, have already pre-ordered OOTP 9, but if a company EVER comes up these basics: career-mode with the option for minor leagues, play by play options (with or without graphics), realistic baseball sim results, a realistic financial system, and THE BEST BASEBALL AI EVER DEVELOPED, both in-game management and roster and organization management, I'll HAPPILY drop $100-$150 on it. They could call that Out of the Box Baseball (for thinking out of the box), then sell annual expansion packs (like RPG games do, with the original required) that adds more bells and whistles.

Oh well, I know you're all tired of hearing an old man's rant. Its just I've been playing the game itself and/or sims/board games since the 1960's, and it would sure be nice to find that very special game before I die. To me, OOTP 8 has all I would ever want, just not the AI.

[dashby]

Old Fat Guy, you've basically summed up my philosophy with MLB sports sims. I couldn't agree with you more. You emphasized the draft jump to MLB in one day but, as we both know, there are tons of other AI inconsistencies in OOTP.

I started playing baseball sims back in the mid-70's in the Strat-o-Matic line. Also played the software sims BM, PtP, EA (if you can consider that a sim), etc. None of them are even close to "spot on". OOTP, I feel, comes closer than all the others I've played but, at best hits about 80% on the reality barometer.

There are a lot of proponents of the game on this forum that feel inclined to disagree with any AI flaw you find. That's their perogative but, Old Fat Guy, you've basically made a point that I couldn't have stated any better. I, like you, would also drop $100 to $150 for an authentic baseball sim that gets it all right.

Anyone out there want have the talent and desire to develop this "golden fleece" game and market it. I will be the first in line to purchase.

[OldFatGuy]

Originally Posted by dashby

Old Fat Guy, you've basically summed up my philosophy with MLB sports sims. I couldn't agree with you more. You emphasized the draft jump to MLB in one day but, as we both know, there are tons of other AI inconsistencies in OOTP.

I started playing baseball sims back in the mid-70's in the Strat-o-Matic line. Also played the software sims BM, PtP, EA (if you can consider that a sim), etc. None of them are even close to "spot on". OOTP, I feel, comes closer than all the others I've played but, at best hits about 80% on the reality barometer.

There are a lot of proponents of the game on this forum that feel inclined to disagree with any AI flaw you find. That's their perogative but, Old Fat Guy, you've basically made a point that I couldn't have stated any better. I, like you, would also drop $100 to $150 for an authentic baseball sim that gets it all right.

Anyone out there want have the talent and desire to develop this "golden fleece" game and market it. I will be the first in line to purchase.

This is what is so puzzling to me, because I really don't believe I'm the only one out there that would gladly drop more than the industry standard $20-$40 for an authentic baseball sim. AND, if I'm not the only one out there, why isn't someone, somewhere working on this right now?????