Serious Problem (Playoff Sim, Feedback, etc.)

[Schaefling]

I just got swept in the playoff again in the NPL. My team won 116 games and won it's division by 29 games. This is the tough East Division and I have the Mets. I also had the among the lowest if not the lowest team ERAs in the league. And once again in spite of the patch my pitching staff performed poorly and was outperformed by a much poorer pitching staff.

I have played many years in Stratomatic leagues and am familiar with many other great face to face baseball, basketball, and football sports simulations. The randomness we are seeing in the playoffs in BBMO simply would not be tolerated by gamers playing in organized leagues using these other sports simulations.

I know your game is more simplistic in the simulation aspects of baseball because it also focuses on the business side of baseball. Even so I strongly believe there is a very serious randomness problem in the playoffs. As I said in another post if players and teams do not play to their ratings in the playoffs then how can managers effectively evaluate their game performance? The answer is they can't.

Your really serious problem though is with some of your customers. For the first time I am hearing managers talking of leaving BBMO permanently. And these are not your more casual customers but your most ardent fans who pay the most to play the game.

Lately there has also been a serious lack of feedback from Sports Mogul. This is also affecting customer satisfaction. I know it's Xmas time but please try to respond more rapidly to some of the very serious complaints coming in now. I say this not for my sake alone as a big fan of this game but for your sake as well.

[James Grove]

Schaefling -

We are currently studying the playoff results over multiple sims, to try and discern if there are patterns that we can recognize.

Most obvious would be something where the the best team always loses -- but I suspect we won't be so lucky as to find something as straightforward as that.

We'll let you know what we learn.

And we are also going to toy with less subtle manipulations of the engine, giving an edge to the "better" team, just to see how it impacts the ultimate outcomes.

Hopefully we can find a happy medium that remains realistic while rewarding good teams.

Thanks for your input,
James

[Schaefling]

Thanks for the update and I hope that your tweaking helps.

I still think something's wrong with the playoff engine. Call it a very strong gut feeling based on lots of playoff experiences. At the same time I agree with your thinking that it might be very difficult to find. That said here's hoping you find it.

[Seiryuu]

I don't believe that there is anything "wrong" with the playoff engine... I trully believe as I stated in another thread... that this is indicative of the playoff system MLB currently uses. See below.

Let us see if we can finally put this one to bed!

To be very blunt... historically in MLB, the team with the BEST seasonal record in the playoff only goes on to win the World Series 25% of the time.

Since the start of the Divisional Playoff Format (including the oddity of 1981) the team with the best record has only won 1 out of 8 tries. The stats are as follows:

Best Record = 1 Win (Yankees)
2nd Best = 2 Wins
3rd Best = 2 Win
4th Best = 1 Win
5th Best = 0 Win
6th Best = 1 Win
7th Best = 0 Win
8th Best = 1 Win (Yankees again!)

In the previous format for the League Championship Series, 1969 to 1993 (excluding 1981,) the respective stats are as follows:

Best Record = 7 wins
2nd Best = 5 wins
3rd Best = 8 wins
4th Best = 4 wins

As such, I don't think the issue is how your team is being managed during the playoff, but rather that it is very tough for a team to win a short series, let alone three series in a row! This is especially evident as the best record in baseball has only won 1 of the last 7 tries. Surprisingly, the team with the third best record in baseball has won 10 out of 32 tries (SABR anyone?)

In summary... I don't really think you can blame the game... the concerns seem to be more a result of the MLB playoff format then with Clay and Co. Anyone else in favor of 154 game seasons!

[Godard]

Get into the playoffs, no matter what.

After that, anything can happen!

(but be sure to take credit for doing a great job should you win)

[khan]

Godard/Seiryu-

Please keep in mind that Schaefling is appealing to Clay/James, not to you guys. I think he has a right to do that. There is a problem and Clay even said there was.


Originally posted by Clay Dreslough
Just letting you know that I think a pre-ponderance of the evidence does indicate pitcher performances in Baseball Mogul's post-season are unrealistically poor.

Clay


He's trying to point out a bug. Let Clay/James deal with it, please. I've played in leagues with Schaefling and he is one of the best GMs out there. Lets give him some credit, instead of trying to prove him wrong.

[khan]

Seiryu-

Since the other thread is getting too long, lets just continue our discussion on this thread.


According to the evidence you presented, 6 of the 8 WS were won by teams who had one of the top 4 records in baseball. Thats 75% of the WS.


And only 1 of the WS was won by a team that had the 7th or lower record in baseball. Thats only 12.5% of the WS.

What Cipster, myself, Schaefling, jokerswild, metdenn and a host of other GMs can testify to is THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS IN BASEBALL MOGUL ONLINE.

In the leagues I've been in, the top 4 records account for only about 30% of the WS and the bottm two records account for about 50% of the WS.

This is NOT consistent with "real life" baseball. I'll say it again.

If the BMO playoffs reduced results that were close to what you wrote, we'd all be VERY HAPPY.

[Seiryuu]

interesting observations... feel free to forward me the "stats" and I will be happy to complete an analysis of them...

at this point I do not agree with your previous post regarding that this is an "appeal" ,.. I believe the information being addressed is open to all as I do not see anyone doing a detached study of the relevance of this issue... to this point the only stance addressed has been "I have the best team and it has won the WS." I don't believe that this is an issue given the research I have presented... thanks...

[drew]

Well, if you only play 7 games and only using your top 3 starters, the results are going to seem pretty random compared to the reguloar season