OT - OOTP 5.11 Patch Released.

[ScottVib]

*** OOTP 5.11 Patch RELEASED! ***
You can get it here:

http://400studios1.inetu.net/files/ootp/ootp511.zip

Enhancements:
- Added trading options to the advanced league setup screen, "difficulty level" and
"favor tendency".
- Fixed rotation AI, this now works as advertised, with the highest rested starter
always starting for human controlled team. The AI teams may well start it's #5 starter
even if the #1 guy is rested (in non-crucal games).
- Added the "find player" options and "display all players" to the almanac screen,
making it available for online league members
- Added Minor League standings to the Standings report and the Top Systems report
- Give the user more chances in contract extention negotiations
- Changed depth chart starting percentage logic. Example: A utility player has a 20%
starting percentage. Instead of having a 20% chance in each game to start, he'll now
start every fifth game.
- Added League-Wide Trading Block to the trade screen and the league HTML outputs.
- Trade screen is now accessible in online leagues without password, only the
"Receiving Team"-button is protected.
- The user may now up his bid to a free agent any time, even if the player already
favors the users offer
- Added park effects to the picture of the ballpark inside the team setup screen
- Added origin, outfield arm and catcher arm to the general CSV import/export
- Fine-tuned pinch hitting AI
- Fine-tuned player contract extention AI. The number of contract years is now valued
lower compared to the salary than before.
- Fixed other small bugs and cosmetic issues

I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers,
Markus

[Cards4ever]

Do we have to start a new game to get the effects of the patch?

[Alan T]

nope!

Btw cards, nice trade of Pettite at the deadline. First thing that happens.. boom injury.. Ruptured Elbow ligament.. I guess thats getting your trade value just in time

[MizzouRah]

Beautiful!

Thanks, just saw it posted over at the ootp forums, came here and Scott had me beat.

Can't wait to get home tonight and check it out!


Todd

[cincyreds]

Whooo Hoooo!!

I cannot wait to get home and get this baby!!

OOTP5 Rules!!! And I ain't no fanboy either, I honestly enjoy playing the game.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally posted by cincyreds
Whooo Hoooo!!

I cannot wait to get home and get this baby!!

OOTP5 Rules!!! And I ain't no fanboy either, I honestly enjoy playing the game.

Fanboy

[MizzouRah]

cincy,

You're supposed to say,

"Markus rulez! This patch is da bomb! Minor league standings are off da hook! There is no better game, ootp craps on High Heat!"

..or something like that...


Todd

[JonInMiddleGA]

- Added trading options to the advanced league setup screen, "difficulty level" and "favor tendency".

Still not sure if I like this. Would rather see AI teams make intelligent decisions about when to rebuild, when to salary dump, when to try to get the last piece of the puzzle at the deadline.

- Changed depth chart starting percentage logic. Example: A utility player has a 20% starting percentage. Instead of having a 20% chance in each game to start, he'll now start every fifth game.

Very happy to see this change.

- Added League-Wide Trading Block to the trade screen and the league HTML outputs.

Will have to see this one to know for sure but I think I'm quite happy about this.

The user may now up his bid to a free agent any time, even if the player already favors the users offer

I'm assuming this is in order to try to speed up the FA's decision. If so, I like it ('cause I've certainly wished for it more than once)

[SirFozzie]

Originally posted by JonInMiddleGA
I'm assuming this is in order to try to speed up the FA's decision. If so, I like it ('cause I've certainly wished for it more than once)

Trust me, Everybody I have online leagues with (BTW, join MLBEuro, msg VTBub to get in on it, it's a blast.. small ball at it's best) has been tired of me griping about this issue, and I've been proposing all kinds of wild things to fix it, so to see it pop up in a patch, ROCK ON

[MizzouRah]

Still not sure if I like this. Would rather see AI teams make intelligent decisions about when to rebuild, when to salary dump, when to try to get the last piece of the puzzle at the deadline.

Jon,

Not sure if I like this yet either, although I guess if it's on defaults, it would stay the same and you would tweak from there?

Maybe I can get X person for X person and I say to myself, "That's not a fair trade", then I would click from there??

Seems like we're getting too close to console game sliders to me , but I'll wait to see what others think first.


Todd

[Marmel]

The sliders seem like a cheap way out of actually programming a competant trade AI.

There are some great fixes for online leagues in there, and a few decent tweaks for any league.

Of course, I ahve not tried it out yet, just going off the list above.

[FBPro]

Problem is that if you ask 100 folks about the fairness of a trade you'll get 65-70 different answers. From the looks of discussions the slider aspect of things is moving toward "team specific" sliders for needs, etc in the future. Not a bad move for "now".

[markprior22]

I just don't see how you can get away from sliders on something like trade AI in a solo player game. I don't see it as a negative thing either. You can see by the 100's (probably thousands) of posts at .400 that everyone has a different opinion as to how the trade AI is at any given time. People all have differing ideas as to what trades are "good" and what trades are "bad". Just don't see any way around it.

The next logical step though is to have each computer team take on a more specific strategy regarding player development and spending. Is a team still in the race at the trading deadline....maybe they will look to make the ONE big trade. Are they fading quickly...will they drop some vets for solid, young prospects. This would be sweet.

[Alan T]

I think its because of threads where with the same patch you had alot of people who said trading was too easy and alot of people who said trading was too hard.

Its the case where you can't please all the people all the time, but this appears to be their plan on satisfying everyone. Its just like in the game setup screen when people say injuries happen too often.. then just change it to happen less often. same thing here.

I guess it should cut down on the amount of people who complain whether the trade AI is too easy or difficult to take advantage of. Now I am in the same group of people who hope they do go to making it more realistic in the sense of team to team having a different trade strategy depending on where they are in the standings and other factors. (money, age, etc).

[Maple Leafs]

This one doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but I wonder if it won't turn out to be the biggest addition to v5 yet:

Originally posted by ScottVib
- Fixed rotation AI, this now works as advertised, with the highest rested starter always starting for human controlled team. The AI teams may well start it's #5 starter even if the #1 guy is rested (in non-crucal games).
::emphasis added::

If I read that right, the AI will behave differently depending on whether a game is important or not. That sounds like the first time that the OOTP AI will have some sort of awareness of a team's unique situation, and make it's decisions in that context. If so, this could be the first step down an important (and long-awaited) road.

[cincyreds]

"Markus rulez! This patch is da bomb! Minor league standings are off da hook! There is no better game, ootp craps on High Heat!"

yeah, what Mizzou said.

Fanboy

You will soon follow, GE!!

[ScottVib]

Marmel, Jon, et. al,

As mentioned we hope to enhance the Trade AI in the future moving toward the AI GMs making adjustments as to what kind of player (vets, prospects, etc.) they should favor. However, that change was/is not feasible in an OOTP5 update. (This concern/comment was brought up on the .400 Forums when the sliders were first announced).

Here was Markus' response:

Originally posted by Markus Heinsohn
OK guys...

the idea to make the "Favor xy" option a global one was that everyone has a different opinion on what 'realistic' is. So, folks who thought the AI too heavily favors veterans can adjust this now, and vice-versa.

Zyk is right when he says that the code for this is there. And adding a team setting could be done as well. The only thing that's missing is the code for the AI that determines in what 'mode' the team is, rebuilding, chase the pennant or whatever. This is a tough thing though. There are many factors involved.

Another problem is that the AI-AI trade engine is a different one from the User-AI trade engine. I know this is not a good solution, and I'll get rid off it in V6. So, if the team mode would work in User-AI trades, it still wouldn't affect the AI-AI trades (and building those mode in there is near-impossible without completely rewriting it)

So this is the first step... and hopefully for OOTP6 we'll get the rest of the way there.

[ScottVib]

Originally posted by Maple Leafs
This one doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but I wonder if it won't turn out to be the biggest addition to v5 yet:If I read that right, the AI will behave differently depending on whether a game is important or not. That sounds like the first time that the OOTP AI will have some sort of awareness of a team's unique situation, and make it's decisions in that context. If so, this could be the first step down an important (and long-awaited) road.

Dola,

Actually the code with the Start Highest Rested starter option had been doing this all along, but it was also doing it for human players (in addition to the AI) with the result being that many users (especially Online Leaguers) expressed disappointment that they weren't getting exactly what they expected from this option.

This adjustment had been made in favor of getting the appropriate number of starts for the top starters of a team (modern era testing); but was removed (just for human owned teams) to give human (especially online) users exactly what they were expecting with that option, even at the cost of a #1 starter getting more starts then might be "realistic" in modern baseball. (Of course getting your #1 more starts is the reason that one would choose this mode to begin with)

[MizzouRah]

Originally posted by Alan T
I think its because of threads where with the same patch you had alot of people who said trading was too easy and alot of people who said trading was too hard.

Its the case where you can't please all the people all the time, but this appears to be their plan on satisfying everyone. Its just like in the game setup screen when people say injuries happen too often.. then just change it to happen less often. same thing here.

I guess it should cut down on the amount of people who complain whether the trade AI is too easy or difficult to take advantage of. Now I am in the same group of people who hope they do go to making it more realistic in the sense of team to team having a different trade strategy depending on where they are in the standings and other factors. (money, age, etc).

I see your point, I guess without specific team needs AI, I'll just leave it alone at this time. I'm finding out that my 4 blue star prospects I recieved in a trade(s) are turning out to be lower than the vets I've traded anyway.

You're right, at least this might end the hard/easy trade debates for now, but I still have a problem with all this customizing. I've always been a slider hater.


Todd

[Anrhydeddu]

I just went in and did some of the game tests that I had done before to show how bad the trade AI was. It looks like this patch is a HUGE step forward in that respect. With trading set to hard, the AI now expresses no interest in my 1 star, 30 year old minor leaguer.

This is the most encouraging comment I have seen.

Jim Lynch: I know you favor the trade AI of 5.01 over 5.10. What are your thoughts now? It seems that if you combined the logic of 5.01 with the superb trading interface of 5.10, maybe that's what 5.11 is?

[ISiddiqui]

Woohoo!

Good patch . I like the slider for trade difficulty... then people can set it to what THEY want. And the league wide trade block addition sounds nice as well.

[lynchjm24]

Originally posted by Anrhydeddu


Jim Lynch: I know you favor the trade AI of 5.01 over 5.10. What are your thoughts now? It seems that if you combined the logic of 5.01 with the superb trading interface of 5.10, maybe that's what 5.11 is?

Didn't get to spend a ton of time with it - but in the short time I used it:

A. Best upgrade the game has seen
B. Normal and Neutral are pretty darn good settings. Easy is about where it was at 5.10. Very Hard isn't worth using. It's more then Very Hard - you'll never make a deal in 100 years. Didn't bother with Very Easy and haven't had a chance to look at hard. Normal was an awfully good setting.

Biggest problem with it: If I can't complain about the trading, what can I complain about - there aren't many glaring problems at this point.

[MizzouRah]

I've heard hard is working pretty well, although I'm glad to see 'normal' is very good as well.

I know it has been frustrating winning with the worst team so far. With v4 I won the World Series with the Expos in my second year, then took the Devil Rays to the World Series two years later.

The Cardinals better pray MLB has their setting on easy, they need to trade a 1 star, 30yr old vet for a 5 star reliever.


Todd

[tucker342]

Great patch

Good to see the trading improve... that seems like that would be one of the tougher things to program into the game...

[MizzouRah]

Dola,

The hard setting seems about perfect for me. A tad harder, but realistic. Normal seemed just a bit too easy to get a premier veteran player, although I guess you could change the value settings to favor prospects. I think I'll leave that one alone, becuase I want a good mix of both veterans and prospects.

I wanted to trade a 2 gold star SP for a blue star prospect SP. At normal, I could swipe Boston's current closer Frank Rodriguiez or a decent 4 1/2 star young SP. At hard, Frank went away, but the prospect SP was still there. Right now, the trade is great for Boston as they are trying to keep pace with the Yankees and need depth at SP, as an injury would hurt them there. I'm the Brewers, so young arms are welcome. The guy I recieved has at least a year or two left in AAA, but I need him now, so he'll learn the hard way, plus I saved a million to boot.

It will take at least a few years to get a feel how good everything has been implemented. One note, on very hard I was offered nothing from Boston for my SP. I could see a dynasty challenge with trading set on very hard and value set to heavily favor prospects.


Todd

[MizzouRah]

Oh, the ratings?

I traded:

B/B/A 6/7/5/7 26yrs old (he started young, but has never had a good year)

For:

G/G/G 3/5/6/7 23yrs old

I have found out that scouts play a bigger role than I had originally thought.


Todd

[Anrhydeddu]

Another anecdote

I was happy with the trade AI but I will comment on the only new feature that grabbed me. The League Wide trade block told me that the best hitter in the league was up for grabs, and ( after a moment of extreme suspicion) when I checked the team details it is clearly due to financial troubles. I asked for a trade and the computer would only accept good lower salary players or hot prospects in exchange.

I hope that this is more the rule than the exception.

[dunkem]

Regarding the trade AI, I've seen a little improvement with trade difficulty on normal in that the other team doesn't offer me a whole bunch of hot prospects for my overpaid, 35 year old like it used to. However, the trade AI is still not smart enough to realize that even if it's offering me a mediocre prospect, all I'm looking to do is unload my overpaid veteran so that I don't need to pay for his salary. I think salary only becomes an issue when the team's financial are nearing zero... but if it's got enough salary room, it'll take bad salary trades.

On trade difficulty "hard", the computer will only trade for selected "good" players. If you are trying to trade for any sort of average player, you have to throw in one of the "good" players to make it work. Just to test the AI, I chose one of its 35 year old veterans with 2 contact, 4 power, and 4 eye. The only players which would make the deal work were my 5 selected good players and one good prospect. I proceeded to add 3 of my 4-star prospects, but the computer refused. This guy didn't even take more than 5 at-bats through half the season and it didn't want to trade him for 3 prospects. No matter what combination of players, the AI did not want to trade anyone unless it involved those 6 select players it targetted in teh beginning. Therefore, "hard" just limits the list of players it's willing to trade for... and it will refuse to trade for anything else regardless of how sweet the deal is.

Looks like it's still house rules for me (only accept trades offered to me by putting players on the trading block).

[MizzouRah]

You are correct about dumping salary. It's way to easy to trade a high paid player. Just select him and check out what teams will offer, get a decent minor league guy and you're set.

I wonder if very hard might be the way to go?



Todd

[Buccaneer]

I have been getting my baseball fix for the summer by playing OOTP5.11 (historical league, of course). I am amazed how much I like this game (or more accurately, how fun this game is for me to play) and can really into a career, just like my other obsession - FBCB. OOTP6 never appealed to me for some reason and Mogul didn't feel right, but OOTP5 is like putting on a favorite pair of jeans.

One of the things I really like is that the AI financial management is actually pretty good. I am in my 4th season and I have seen the AI teams adjust according to their revenues (no AI cap). I saw the ChiSox shed about $10m in salary to get under their target revenues, while the BoSox added another $5m because they can. It makes it interesting as the owner of a small market team (Wash Senators) whose goal or house rule is to stay profitable. Hard to do when I don't win the pennant and can only draw 27,500 to Griffith Stadium.