Work that DESEPERATELY needs to be done on Progression

[poonani]

Billharris' work on the progress.big was very important in making the simming of seasons more realistic in both MVP 2004 and MVP 2005. However, there remains the problem of incredible unrealistic pitcher progression.

On the surface, if you were to never play a single and only simmed, you would not notice any problems. This is because the progression of the control ratings is very well done, and when combined with the movement ratings (which do not progress much, which is fine) make up the ratings for the pitches.

When starting a game however, you'll notice that there is a HUGE problem with velocities. After 2 or 3 years of progression, much of the pitchers have the same ridiculous progressions. All of the fastballs in the high 90s, sliders getting into the 90s, curveballs getting into the low 70s (if not slower), and changeups getting slower (and obviously more effective).

For example, Adam Miller of the Indians begins with a 96 mph FB, 89 mph slider, and 78 mph changeup. All are devastating on their own, but by 2007 in my game, Adam Miller throws 100 and has a 93 mph slider along with a 75 mph changeup. However, because secondary pitches' velocities do not factor into the pitch's rating, it can easily go unnoticed, and not drastically eff up the simulation

It's reasonable for a pitcher to gain some velocity from when they are 18 or 19 to when they're 21, and usually its a couple ticks. But I dont think any of the secondary pitches should be touched.

The problem with fixing this is that the progression structure is so confusing. Rather than using the easier system last year, the collection of CSV files have a weird structure that I can't seem to figure out.

I know people are more interested in the resign.csv file (which doesnt seem too difficult to mod), I hope some people are at least interested in fixing this, as this is more of a game killer than anything.

[Emil]

PM Billharris about it!

[poonani]

He hasnt posted here in months

[aaronuconn]

Do players progress during the season or only after spring training in mvp05?

[poonani]

s/t

[poonani]

Am i the only person having this problem?

[TheMadcap]

no poonani, I completely agree with you. This topic is much more important than the fa movement in the game but, to my knowledge it is also much more difficult to correct. This would be one of the biggest improvements in MVP 06 as nothing kills a franchise game like year 3 when the pitchers start going crazy. I just really have very little to add as I have no idea how to correct it. I would be willing to help on the project if anyone has any ideas.

[DarkEnigma510]

Uncompress progress.big, extract progpdec.csv and your answer lies there.

[poonani]

Uncompress progress.big, extract progpdec.csv and your answer lies there.

And what do you gather from this?

We can at least tell that the progp files rather than the progb, are the ones that matter (p for pitcher, b for batter), but beyond that who knows.

[TheMadcap]

Well poonani, here is what I have come up with so far. Obviously the player age is denoted to the left. The pitch quality (pitcher's rating for a specific pitch) is then broken down into 4 groups; 0-39/ 40-59/ 60-79/ 80-99. Now within those 4 groupings we have the individual pitches grouped into one of 3 groups (there are 15 different pitch types in the game); 1-5/ 6-10/ 11-15/. Now as far as all the numbers go I am guessing that they have to correlate to how effective each of these pitches can be thrown based upon pitch type, pitch rating & age of pitcher. Assuming that I am right we now need to figure out what pitches are in what groups & what changing the numbers will do to their pitch effectiveness & velocity. If anyone knows @ what age range a pitcher is most likely to achieve maximum velocity then this could help us to determine which of these groupings is for speed pitches (fast ball variations, sliders...) & also help us to narrow down the other two groups. Also, @ what age pitchers tend to throw their best breaking stuff would be helpful too. I know very little about the progression of a MLB pitcher (apparently EA is in the same boat!), but to someone who does these tables might make a bit more sense.

[TheMadcap]

I think that pitches 1-5 definately have to be speed pitches. For pitches falling in the 60-79 category group 1-5 peaks from ages 22-25. After 25 the quality of these pitches gradually decreases throughout the pitchers career. If a pitcher has a fastball that falls in this range then it is obviosly not his best pitch (or he's a crappy pitcher), therefor he may be able to throw a "decent" fastball for a couple of years, but his arm won't hold up for the long haul. If you compare this to the 80-99 group, those pitchers turn it up @ age 21, peak @ ages 24-25 & continue to throw this pitch well until the age of 29 when the quality of this pitch gradually decreases. I should mention that I am throwing out the data for pitches in the 0-39 & 40-59 ranges because I fugure them to be pretty irrelevant.

Another thing to think about with this data is that a pitchers star rating is also going to come into play. A four star pitcher who jumps a category in pitch quality (fastball jumps from 60-79 group to the 80-89 group) is going to realize a much greater velocity jump, especially if that jump falls on one of EA's pre determined age markers. Am I making sense?

I think the key here is to make any progressions form year to year more subtle & to level off the velocity rating. That way unless a player moves up a level in the pitch quality category, we can minimize the huge increases/decreases in velocity for up-and-comers as well as veterans. Also, by doing this, even pitchers who DO jump a category will still have their velocity limited to a more realistic ammount. I have only played to maybe year 3 of a dynasty but I do remember pitchers throwing 101mph plus. If we can limit this too 100mph & smooth out the progression, we might have this thing cracked. Someone with a real good knowledge of pitcher progression is going to need some imput to make this legit.

[Kccitystar]

Damn I wish I was able to help out on the statistic based portion of modding instead of the graphical stuff, but man I love these pseudo realistic mods.

-KC

[TheMadcap]

Yeah but K.C., I think you've already contributed your share :wink:

[DarkEnigma510]

I wasn't sure when I looked at that file what this meant but I had some different ideas. You should alos take a look at progpadj.csv which tells the computer the probabiities of whether a pitcher at a given age and star level should progfress upwards, downwards or the same.

Based on this file, I interpreted the progpdec.csv to be a file to instruct the computer on how much to adjust the progression in absolute terms. I originally viewed the three columns as iassinging percentage to changes of 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15 respectively. However, I can't remember now if pitchers pitches ever progressed more than 5 units in one off season.

If this file is what I think it is, then you could conceivably restrict the progression during the years 24-30.

However, your interpretation that 1-5 refers to certain pitch types coud also be the correct one. Someone would have to test out this theory by running sum sim years and maybe setting different values to 1 and 0 to see how they impact progression. For example, if you set 1-5 to 0 for all the ages, an then run the progression and see that fastball type pitches never progress from year to yearm then that interpretation is correct. If you see fastballs progressing, then you would know 1-5 doesnt refer to fastball types.

Either way, if your interpretation is correct then you could limit progression on fastballs simply by lowering the number for the 1-5 columns. But again, I'm not sure if my interpretation or yours is correct.

Another warning, Bill progression mod showed that balance in the game is fragile. So if anyone messes too much with these files you may throw the game out of balance. By that I mean, you might end up seeing in 10-20 dynasty years a league dominated by pitchers, or maybe too many good hitters around. However, if you are only playing say 5 or so dynasty years, it may not make a difference. Something to keep in mind.

[fuzzone]

i contact bill harris through psychic-telekenetic energy.

want me to get in touch with him?

[DarkEnigma510]

OK, I just noticed this:

progpdec seems to determine the amount of a decline for a pithcer, while progpinc controls the increases. And as I said, progpadj determines whteher a player moves up ro down in a given year.

[TheMadcap]

so you are saying that these three files all are going to play into pitcher progression/regression then? This is going to be a ***** for sure.

[DarkEnigma510]

Yes im saying all 3 files play a part. each has a different role.

[TheMadcap]

Great, so where do you suggest that we get started?

[DarkEnigma510]

A good exercise would be to change the 0-5 columns to say zero for all ages and ratings and see what impact that has on pitcher progression. This would have to be done for progpdec and progpinc. Once this is done and a year is simmed, we should be able to determine what those columns change exactly.

For example, if you were correct on what 0-5,6-10,11-15 change (that they refer to pitch types) then you should see certain types of pitches never progressing. (I.e pitchers fastballs always change by zero in the offseason).

Alternatively, if I am correct, you will notice that all pitches are changing in the offseason, but those changes are by factors of greater than five.

This exercise would determine once and for all exactly what those columns are changing.

[TheMadcap]

How do I go about editing progpinc & progpadj? What do I need to open them?

[DarkEnigma510]

They are csv files, so just use Excel.

You can unload them out of progress.big using bigGUI

[poonani]

i contact bill harris through psychic-telekenetic energy.

want me to get in touch with him?

yes please :)

[TheMadcap]

I'm going to fool around with progpdec this week a bit. If what I was saying is true then we might be able to leave pitcher progression/regression alone and focus more on the individual pitches & their maximum effectiveness. That way, even if a pitcher progresses mightily he can still get only so good. It's a shot in the dark but I'll give it a go.

[TheMadcap]

If anyone would like to take a look at this please do. I would like to whip something up by the release of 06 but I fear I may not have the time. I am finishing up work on a facepack release & am contending with a much tougher school schedule than I had anticipated. If nobody is going to give it a shot then I will be doing some work on it but probably not until shortly after the 06 due date.