Schedule generator issue corrected in patch?

[Carplos]

Looking at the change list, it doesn't say anything about correcting the problem with the schedule generator where it schedules teams to play all home games (or all road) against other teams, instead of half/half (or close.) I can't imagine nobody else noticed the issue. Then again, I didn't notice it until I was actually messing around with schedules earlier.

Is it being fixed?

(I wasn't sure if this should go here or technical reports, since I wasn't necessarily reporting it, and you can't reply to the changelist topic.)

[Stu]

I also had problems trying to select a date for the all star game. When I tried to schedule it on a specific date, it would either delete the all star game or schedule to the default date.

I'm importing my own schedules now.

[james17]

I recommend that you bypass the in-game scheduler and just import a schedule from the data/schedules folder. I'm very happy with them.

[TC Dale]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Looking at the change list, it doesn't say anything about correcting the problem with the schedule generator where it schedules teams to play all home games (or all road) against other teams, instead of half/half (or close.) I can't imagine nobody else noticed the issue. Then again, I didn't notice it until I was actually messing around with schedules earlier.

Is it being fixed?

(I wasn't sure if this should go here or technical reports, since I wasn't necessarily reporting it, and you can't reply to the changelist topic.)

I will move it to Tech Support, and if the issue isn't on the list for 1st patch, please try the new version when it comes out and then let us know post-patch how it is going, and then we can address this issue again after the first one is out for public consumption.

Thanks for your patience!

[Andreas Raht]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Looking at the change list, it doesn't say anything about correcting the problem with the schedule generator where it schedules teams to play all home games (or all road) against other teams, instead of half/half (or close.)

That has been fixed, too. I've never seen that all the games have been scheduled as home games for a team, but they have definitely been wrong. That's fixed now. We've also added some more information to the "schedule evaluation report".

[Carplos]

Originally Posted by james17

I recommend that you bypass the in-game scheduler and just import a schedule from the data/schedules folder. I'm very happy with them.

Yeah, I use those where possible, but a lot of the leagues I want to/have created don't fit in nicely with those structures.

That has been fixed, too. I've never seen that all the games have been scheduled as home games for a team, but they have definitely been wrong. That's fixed now. We've also added some more information to the "schedule evaluation report".

Bad wording on my part, I haven't had any teams play all home or road games, I meant all home/road games versus individual teams. The overall schedule evens out to 81/81 (or whatever), but they play all home game versus some teams and all road games versus others.

From my experience so far, it gets the first team in the league right, but every other team has problems.

Thanks for the update!

[david limbaugh]

I can created schedules and import them successfully and all teams' schedules look great but for some reason 'post season' to sim to is about a month before the regular season is over????

And as soon as regular season is over game crashes with 'srollbar' error...

and web-cast option crashes immediately with 'srollbar' error if I just start the league over again from a quickstart league...

[gmo]

Originally Posted by david limbaugh

I can created schedules and import them successfully and all teams' schedules look great but for some reason 'post season' to sim to is about a month before the regular season is over????

After importing a schedule the list of dates for certain events is not altered from what it was. If the league was created with a schedule that was set that resulted in the postseason beginning Sept. 20, then imported a schedule that would have the postseason beginning Oct. 10, the "Postseason begins" date would still show Sept. 20 like under the baseball icon tab. That does not mean though that the postseason would begin on that old date - it is just not updated to show the new information.

[david limbaugh]

Originally Posted by gmo

After importing a schedule the list of dates for certain events is not altered from what it was. If the league was created with a schedule that was set that resulted in the postseason beginning Sept. 20, then imported a schedule that would have the postseason beginning Oct. 10, the "Postseason begins" date would still show Sept. 20 like under the baseball icon tab. That does not mean though that the postseason would begin on that old date - it is just not updated to show the new information.

So, where in the XML code of the .lsdl file is the date for post-season addressable? See what I mean?

I have wished for years that OOTP would allow us to designate the type of game each game is, i.e. 'Spring Training' ; 'Regular Season' and 'Post Season' - with the ability to design our own post-season games/schedule as far as who made it and who they play....

[Carplos]

The game still is giving me this problem when attempting to set up a schedule for 16 teams, 120 game schedule, 4 game normal series length.

I've tried it with all 16 teams in one division, 8 in two separate divisions and 4 4-team divisions as well. That's 8 games against each opponent, so I figured it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I thought maybe it just didn't like the 16 teams in one division, but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

EDIT: Okay, it also is still having the same problem generating an 8-team, one league/division, 98 game schedule with 3-game series length.

It's also telling me for both that it "cannot generate schedule for league with inter league option or unbalanced schedule option."

[Andreas Raht]

Originally Posted by Carplos

The game still is giving me this problem when attempting to set up a schedule for 16 teams, 120 game schedule, 4 game normal series length.

I've tried it with all 16 teams in one division, 8 in two separate divisions and 4 4-team divisions as well. That's 8 games against each opponent, so I figured it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I thought maybe it just didn't like the 16 teams in one division, but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

EDIT: Okay, it also is still having the same problem generating an 8-team, one league/division, 98 game schedule with 3-game series length.

It's also telling me for both that it "cannot generate schedule for league with inter league option or unbalanced schedule option."

The schedule generator in the current version does only generate schedules for leagues without inter league games, and with the checkbox "Use balanced schedule format" ticked.

But we're getting good schedules for the settings that you've mentioned.

[Carplos]

Any and all attempts to have the game generate even home/away games versus other teams have failed even with the patch. Even for a 1 subleague, 5-6-5 setup, 162 game schedule.

I'm not trying to be a pain, it's just a bit frustrating than any customization is useless because you can't get a proper schedule. I know the schedule generator has never been one of OOTP's finer points--and it's a very hard thing to program, but it at least used to give us even home/away games versus opponents.

The schedule generator in the current version does only generate schedules for leagues without inter league games, and with the checkbox "Use balanced schedule format" ticked.

Okay.

But we're getting good schedules for the settings that you've mentioned.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, then.. I've tried it in leagues I've already created and new leagues.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Any and all attempts to have the game generate even home/away games versus other teams have failed even with the patch. Even for a 1 subleague, 5-6-5 setup, 162 game schedule, unbalanced schedule. For that matter, that attempt even ignored my leaving "balanced" unchecked.

I'm afraid getting individual matchups against an opponent balanced between home and away games is simply not going to happen with a schedule generator, particularly with an asymmetric setup like 5-6-5. If you sat down to try and do it by hand and found it difficult, programming a utility to do is even more so.

For what it's worth, MLB doesn't have even home-away splits against individual opponents anymore either for the most part. You'll see things like 16 games split 9-7 or 7-9, or 10 games split 7-3 or 3-7, etc. (These kinds of things are done to eliminate as two-game series from the schedule as possible - MLB hates two-game series.)

All the schedules in the Mods section of the OOTP6/6.5 forums contain lots of schedules for that earlier version. They will all eventually be converted over for use. Someone has already gotten the jump on that by creating their own utility to convert the OOTP6/6.5 CSV schedule files into the format used by OOTP2006. It appears to be working well so far.

You can read about it in this thread: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=121664

So, you can either try the above and convert an OOTP6/6.5 schedule file over, or, stick with league alignments and schedule lengths which have actually been used by MLB over the years. That way you'll have real-world schedules you can import and use.

[Andreas Raht]

Thanks for your support, LGO. But Carplos is right, it's possible to make the schedules better, and we're working on that. Carplos, keep in mind that the auto-generated schedules will never be perfect, better use the pre-defined schedules if possible. There will be a bunch of them available on this site soon. Copy them into the schedules folder and they will be used automatically.

[Carplos]

For what it's worth, MLB doesn't have even home-away splits against individual opponents anymore either for the most part. You'll see things like 16 games split 9-7 or 7-9, or 10 games split 7-3 or 3-7, etc. (These kinds of things are done to eliminate as two-game series from the schedule as possible - MLB hates two-game series.)

The problem is it's giving something like 8/0, or even 12/0. 7/5, 5/3, or whatever would be fine. It was confirmed as a bug and in the patch, and add to the fact Andreas just said they were getting fine results with the setups I mentioned, I have to be doing something wrong, although I can't see what I'm doing that would cause it.

The 120 gms with 8 against 15 other opponents isn't asymmetrical and it's doing everything right--two 4 game series against each team--but except for one team in the league getting the splits right (which it did pre-patch, as well), every other season series is all at home for one team.

All the schedules in the Mods section of the OOTP6/6.5 forums contain lots of schedules for that earlier version. They will all eventually be converted over for use. Someone has already gotten the jump on that by creating their own utility to convert the OOTP6/6.5 CSV schedule files into the format used by OOTP2006. It appears to be working well so far.

I have been looking at the schedules there and downloading them when possible, although at the moment only one of them fits with the current set up I'm using (the 8 gm, 98 game schedule), but it doesn't seem to work after converting. I haven't looked much into that issue yet, though.

[Carplos]

Carplos, keep in mind that the auto-generated schedules will never be perfect, better use the pre-defined schedules if possible.

Oh, I'm not expecting them to be perfect. When possible, I always use outside schedules to import, but it isn't always possible. If the structures I want to use aren't available, I'm fine using the in-game generator and then changing a few things. Like I said, I'm just trying to figure out why it won't give me either even splits, or close to even splits (like LGO said). As I said in response to LGO, it's doing everything like it should, except the home/away splits.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

But Carplos is right, it's possible to make the schedules better, and we're working on that.

I'm sure if yourself, gmo, and myself were to have some discussions on the theory involved and toss around some idea concepts, I'm sure we could come up with some things to try to make things better.

I meant my comment more in the sense that there likely won't be any quick or dramatic improvements, but more of a slow, gradual process.

Originally Posted by Carplos

The problem is it's giving something like 8/0, or even 12/0. 7/5, 5/3, or whatever would be fine.

To bolster my hypothesis that you can find a real-world schedule just about as strange as any game-generated one, I offer the 2005 Southern League schedule:

     CAR  CNG  HVL  TEN  WTN   BIR  JCK  MSS  MOB  MTG
------------------------------------------------------
CAR   --   37   14   20   17    10   20    8    7    7 
CNG   37   --   18   17   17    17   10   14    6    4 
HVL   14   18   --   21   16    11   10   21   23    6 
TEN   20   17   21   --   20    18    6    7   10   21 
WTN   17   17   16   20   --    13    8   22   18    9
------------------------------------------------------ 
BIR   10   17   11   18   13    --   23   13   15   20 
JCK   20   10   10    6    8    23   --   15   22   26 
MSS    8   14   21    7   22    13   15   --   16   24 
MOB    7    6   23   10   18    15   22   16   --   23 
MTG    7    4    6   21    9    20   26   24   23   --
------------------------------------------------------
Tot  140  140  140  140  140   140  140  140  140  140 

Div   88   89   69   78   70    71   86   68   76   93 
Int   52   51   71   62   70    69   54   72   64   47

Two 5-team divisions and yet the matchups make no sense at all. Two teams (Carolina and Chattanooga) are playing over one-quarter of their season against each other; Huntsville plays 21 and 23 games against teams in the other division while playing just 14 against division rival Carolina.

It gets worse when the home-away splits are factored in:

       CAR     CNG     HVL     TEN     WTN      BIR     JCK     MSS     MOB     MTG   
      H  A    H  A    H  A    H  A    H  A     H  A    H  A    H  A    H  A    H  A
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAR   -  -   19 18    6  8   11  9    6 11     3  7   14  6    4  4    3  4    4  3 
CNG  18 19    -  -   11  7   10  7    8  9     4 13    6  4    6  8    3  3    4  0  
HVL   8  6    7 11    -  -    9 12   10  6     7  4    3  7   11 10   12 11    3  3 
TEN   9 11    7 10   12  9    -  -    8 12     7 11    3  3    3  4    7  3   14  7 
WTN  11  6    9  8    6 10   12  8    -  -     9  4    4  4   12 10    4 14    3  6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
BIR   7  3   13  4    4  7   11  7    4  9     -  -   12 11    6  7    7  8    6 14 
JCK   6 14    4  6    7  3    3  3    4  4    11 12    -  -    6  9   15  7   14 12 
MSS   4  4    8  6   10 11    4  3   10 12     7  6    9  6    -  -    6 10   12 12 
MOB   4  3    3  3   11 12    3  7   14  4     8  7    7 15   10  6    -  -   10 13 
MTG   3  4    0  4    3  3    7 14    6  3    14  6   12 14   12 12   13 10    -  - 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     70 70   70 70   70 70   70 70   70 70    70 70   70 70   70 70   70 70   70 70 
      140     140     140     140     140      140     140     140     140     140

Carolina plays Jacksonville 20 times with a home-away split of 6-14; Chattanooga plays Birmingham 17 times with a home-away split of 13-4; Tennessee plays Montgomery 21 times with a home-away split of 7-14; West Tenn plays Mobile 18 times with a home-away split of 14-4. There are other examples of totally off-the-wall splits as well.

And yet this was the actual schedule used by the Souther League in 2005. (My theory on its creation assumes the schedulemaker drew teams and numbers of matchups randomly out of a hat, because I sure can't seen any rational pattern to it.)

So, while perhaps truth is not stranger than fiction, it sure can come close...

[Carplos]

To bolster my hypothesis that you can find a real-world schedule just about as strange as any game-generated one, I offer the 2005 Southern League schedule:

And yet none of those have one team playing every game at home against another.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that I think every schedule is neat and even in the real world or anything.

Plus, like I said, twice already, it's generating a schedule where they play all the other teams 8 times, it's just they're all 8 at home or on the road. This was listed as fixed, and Andreas says they can generate it properly, so I'm not sure what your point actually is. If it was developing a lopsided schedule where they played some teams 12 and others 4 or whatever, I'd be fine with it. It seems to be a problem currently, though.

[Carplos]

Here is why I think there's still a problem, or I'm doing something wrong. It's a one league, 8-team, 154 game schedule.

[DerekT]

Originally Posted by Carplos

And yet none of those have one team playing every game at home against another.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that I think every schedule is neat and even in the real world or anything.

Plus, like I said, twice already, it's generating a schedule where they play all the other teams 8 times, it's just they're all 8 at home or on the road. This was listed as fixed, and Andreas says they can generate it properly, so I'm not sure what your point actually is. If it was developing a lopsided schedule where they played some teams 12 and others 4 or whatever, I'd be fine with it. It seems to be a problem currently, though.

I don't believe it was listed as fixed. The idea that a team will play an equal amount of games at home/road was fixed. The idea that a team will play against another team an equal amount of home/road games is not.