A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

[Mackrel829]

A lot of us get frustrated with the lack of logic behind the way that the CPU teams build their rosters. I personally saw Bobby Witt Jr. traded to the Yankees straight up for a C potential prospect earlier today. Many of us find controlling all teams too much of an investment of time and effort, however. I had the following thought earlier about a simple way to bridge this gap.

Team Tags: users can tag teams with their status in the league, such as 'rebuilding', 'buying', 'selling', 'contending', etc. This would then dictate the way that the CPU conducts itself when handling the roster. A team tagged 'rebuilding' won't be trading their top prospect at the deadline or paying big money in FA. A team tagged 'contending' would be more willing to trade for a high OVR player on an expiring deal. Etc.

Player tags: users can tag players with their status on the team, such as 'untouchable', 'core', 'starter', 'on the block', etc. This would then dictate the way that CPU teams engage with those players. A player tagged 'untouchable' will not be traded for anything. A player tagged 'on the block' will almost definitely be traded at the deadline. Etc.

If, as a user, you want to go through the entire league and tag every player, you can. If you'd prefer to just tag a couple of teams or players that you want to behave in a particular way, you can. If you want to ignore the feature completely and let the CPU have at it, you can do that too. Seems like a pretty simple way to give the logic a hand whilst allowing users some flexibility.

I'd probably tag all teams and update them as the standings change, I'd probably tag the 2-3 players on each team that are truly untouchable, and I'd probably tag the top 10 or so prospects in the league. Wouldn't take long, but the transactions would probably be way more realistic and I wouldn't have to micromanage every single one.

I know nothing about coding or game design but it also seems like it should be pretty easy to implement too.

Thoughts?

[Caulfield]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

there are any number of ways the Studio could change what they do but until then:

bad mismanagement in the Show used to be a major pet peeve/gear grinder for me but over the years my attitude evolved in that any head scratchers I see aren't any worse than what happens IRL evidence Mark McGwire for Ludwick, Mathews & Stein or whatever other myriad of bad trades that have happened through the years.

nowadays I just view it as beauty is in the eye of the beholder because one teams junk could be anothers treasure (or diamond in the rough) because if one team can trade a non-HoF'er away (Texas Rangers in this instance) for a future HoF'er (from the Chicago White Sox, again in this instance) and the Rangers seemingly got the bad end of that particular deal (Rangers trade away Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines)

then I finally made my peace with watching in the Show for example seeing Derek Jeter going to the Red Sox for Jackie Bradley Jr.

sometimes there is just no accounting for bad taste

what I do do in the Show when it comes to trades (and this may be off-topic) is set the trades slider at:
1 for February/March
2 for April
3 for May
4 for June
5 for July
1 for August & September
zero for October
and 6 for November to January

[jcar0725]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

A lot of us get frustrated with the lack of logic behind the way that the CPU teams build their rosters. I personally saw Bobby Witt Jr. traded to the Yankees straight up for a C potential prospect earlier today. Many of us find controlling all teams too much of an investment of time and effort, however. I had the following thought earlier about a simple way to bridge this gap.

Team Tags: users can tag teams with their status in the league, such as 'rebuilding', 'buying', 'selling', 'contending', etc. This would then dictate the way that the CPU conducts itself when handling the roster. A team tagged 'rebuilding' won't be trading their top prospect at the deadline or paying big money in FA. A team tagged 'contending' would be more willing to trade for a high OVR player on an expiring deal. Etc.

Player tags: users can tag players with their status on the team, such as 'untouchable', 'core', 'starter', 'on the block', etc. This would then dictate the way that CPU teams engage with those players. A player tagged 'untouchable' will not be traded for anything. A player tagged 'on the block' will almost definitely be traded at the deadline. Etc.

If, as a user, you want to go through the entire league and tag every player, you can. If you'd prefer to just tag a couple of teams or players that you want to behave in a particular way, you can. If you want to ignore the feature completely and let the CPU have at it, you can do that too. Seems like a pretty simple way to give the logic a hand whilst allowing users some flexibility.

I'd probably tag all teams and update them as the standings change, I'd probably tag the 2-3 players on each team that are truly untouchable, and I'd probably tag the top 10 or so prospects in the league. Wouldn't take long, but the transactions would probably be way more realistic and I wouldn't have to micromanage every single one.

I know nothing about coding or game design but it also seems like it should be pretty easy to implement too.

Thoughts?

I try not to get caught up in potentials. I wonder what the overalls were for each player in the trade? I've had plenty of C or D potential players be very productive for my teams over the years, and A potential players who didn't do that much.

Sent from my thoughts

[Mackrel829]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

I try not to get caught up in potentials. I wonder what the overalls were for each player in the trade? I've had plenty of C or D potential players be very productive for my teams over the years, and A potential players who didn't do that much.

Sent from my thoughts

It was a low 70s OVR, C potential guy. A young CF but in the majors if I remember.

[dapear]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

I actually love this idea. I think it's exactly what Franchise mode in the Show needs.

Will the devs do it? Who knows. Seems simple on paper but could possibly be a nightmare to code, unsure how it works. Plus, as we all know, Franchise mode has seen the backburner for years.

But being a guy who goes years into his Franchises, I think this would absolutely be a simple step in the right direction to make our universes more believable and logical.

[CBoller1331]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

Yeah being able to manually set each teams needs and trade block without having to make every transaction for every team to keep some of the wonky stuff from happening would be awesome for a 30-team control Franchise.

[lemarflacco]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

I agree with what you're saying but I would like this more for daily roster management/bullpen. I can always take 45 seconds to undo a trade but it takes hours to change lineups so that Giancarlo Stanton isn't leading off or to rotate the bullpen so that they don't use the same receivers everydyay.

Like we need these designations for roster spots as well. So one person can be a designated leadoff hitter or 2 hitter or a minor leaguer is brought up, we can designate him as a starter so you don't have Witt being brought up and not playing

And. ,maybe I'm mistaken, but I think teams do have the like rebuilding designations already. and just judging from all the video game franchises, madden, 2k, show and especially OOTP which sells as a text based sim game; it seems like a lot of the things management wise that seem simple to us are hard to implement. OOTP is def the best, but I was pretty disappointed with how non realistic is was at the same time. As far as moves that were made and lineup logic and etc. Tbh I think the only thing that makes it seem more realistic is the FOG of war ratings and the lack of an overall number being assigned to a players ratings. It makes it harder to see the cpu made a hard trade because you can't really see the ratings.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

I dunno, over the years of my 2014 carry over franchise I've seen some real headscratchers that went the opposite way I thought they would.

Mind you there are still many headscratchers that went the way I thought they would. And I still fleece the cpu on the regular, in spite of now following some personal rules.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

[Detroit Tigers]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

AI can play chess just fine; is building a baseball team that much harder to code for than chess? How many different team-building strategies even are there? Six? Eight? Mobile chess games have better ai than what we get out of opposing AI GMs in sports games.

Theoretically AI GMs can be programmed to perform perfectly. Why are they making decisions that can be categorized as mistakes at all? They’ve either been programmed to make mistakes or they’ve not been programmed to perform perfectly, which is synonymous with saying it doesn’t know what tf it’s actually doing, like a chess AI who loses to you when you don’t know what you’re doing either.

Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about, idk.

[lemarflacco]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

AI can play chess just fine; is building a baseball team that much harder to code for than chess? How many different team-building strategies even are there? Six? Eight? Mobile chess games have better ai than what we get out of opposing AI GMs in sports games.

Theoretically AI GMs can be programmed to perform perfectly. Why are they making decisions that can be categorized as mistakes at all? They’ve either been programmed to make mistakes or they’ve not been programmed to perform perfectly, which is synonymous with saying it doesn’t know what tf it’s actually doing, like a chess AI who loses to you when you don’t know what you’re doing either.

Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about, idk.

I totally agree with you. And in my eyes it seems like it should be easy, but I just have yet to play any video game with great logic when it comes to this sort of thing so im not quite sure if its something that is attainable in the near future.

Maybe its the yearly cycle that limits this?

[tessl]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

It works both ways. In my relocated Pirates franchise Cincinnati acquired Guerrero Jr. for a marginal pitcher. Cincinnati went from last to first between July and September and beat me by 2 games.

I take great pains to ensure I don't rip off the cpu in trades but I also want a competitive game so if the cpu makes a lopsided trade now and then I don't mind.

One thing I've noticed is sometimes they acquire a player at a position they are already strong at but the field competitive teams based upon my experience.

I'm in August 2023 having played - not simmed - all but 5 games and I have yet to make the playoffs and am currently in 3rd place in the NL central.

[DykstrasTeeth]

Re: A Simple Way to Assist AI Team Building?

You could have a league owner option where you must approve every trade as it happens, and then turn the slider up