Quote:
Originally Posted by LansdowneSt
I think it is worth considering that whatever this new behavior precisely is with regard to extremely higher potential prospects in the minors, it presumably has, in a normal game with actual players that the game creates, a good effect on how the game handles promotions, evaluates and values MiLB talent, etc. So being a purposeful change, it was likely done for a reason.
Here is the line from the Changelist for 26:
Updated minor league AI roster management, to be more aggressive at releasing blocking players, and to pay more attention to minor league placement for top talents
So, now I guess we know how they accomplished that.
If this mechanic has resulted in better AI promotions, less releases of top prospects, better evaluations of their talent when trading, smarter AI draft selections, is it worth it? I mean, I have no manually edited 1/600 players force locked to start in AAA. Do you normally? Does anyone? I made one and he got demoted down several levels until I locked him.
If it makes 99.999999999% of the customers have an AI that is smarter but bugs people because when they do this weird thing that never actually happens in the game, and they don't like it... isn't that a trade you'd make?
We can argue that because this didn't exist in OOTP 25, as jpeters showed, it should have been explained better in some documentation - (and I for one, never, ever feel like the one-liners on changes are sufficiently informative enough), but if OOTPD feels the AI is better at its job handling minor-league promotions and prospects, that's what matters. I could see them reversing this or overcorrecting this and getting worse AI across the minors in everyone's games - and why? So a 1/600 experiment yields expected pre-26 results?
It's true that a stats-only player doesn't have the same insight that we who have read this thread now have - that MiLB stats have some potential-driven extra oomph - is that bad? I'm a little annoyed I know this and it makes stats-only more tempting. Should I be concerned if I play with only stats that my next promotion to the majors would be less ready than I thought and might fail? Isn't that baseball? Are great MiLB stats truly a guarantee of MLB success? Has it ever been? Of course, he might not fail either. Does everyone want the game as predictable as that? I wish I didn't even know this was the "how" of that changelist adjustment. I now can't unsee it.
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Appreciate the thoughtful reply. I don’t disagree that improving AI behavior around prospect handling is a worthwhile goal, and if this adjustment helped with that, then fair enough. But I think two things can be true at once.
Yes, users are not locking 1/600 players in AAA. I think there’s too much focus on the test parameters and not enough on what the test revealed. If potential is now influencing minor league performance across the board, that changes what stats actually mean, even for players created normally in the game.
For those of us who rely on stats to supplement or even override ratings, this has real gameplay impact. I want to trust that on-field results reflect current ability. That’s always been the truth, and it’s not a small thing to change without telling users.
If this mechanic is necessary to support smarter AI, I get it. But I still think players deserve clarity about how the system works, even if it doesn’t make it into the changelog. That’s really what I’ve been pushing for.