Fixing Baseball Mogul: A Post from Clay (The Creator)

[free2131]

Not sure why Clay doesn't advertise his blog about designing Mogul, but this is straight from that blog:

Baseball Mogul 2013 is too easy.

There, I said it.

It's possible to take control of a mediocre team during Spring Training and turn it into a playoff team before Opening Day. You go to the Trading Block and offer up some minor leaguers, until you can get a good player at every position. If you keep pestering the computer-controlled teams, you can eventually find a lopsided trade in your favor.

In addition to browbeating the computer GMs into giving you good players, the player ratings make everything too easy. As long as you give your Scouting Staff enough money, you gain psychic powers regarding the talent (and future talent) of every player in the database.

If you haven't yet come to these conclusions, that's great! I'm glad the game continues to challenge you. But if you've been playing for 15 years, you've probably learned a lot of tricks to beat the computer teams.

Dumb Computer GMs

One solution to the problem with trades being too easy is to play on the "Mogul" Difficulty Level. But "Mogul Level" messes with things. For starters, free agents often demand much more from you than they do from the computer teams. And the computer-controlled teams turn down trades that no real-life GM would turn down. Furthermore, to keep the league competitive, the game lets the computer-controlled teams break some rules that human-controlled teams have to follow (like signing players even when the team is in debt).

The computer-controlled GMs need to get smarter, instead of circumventing the rules and relying on free agents that hate the human-controlled team. The previous Trade AI was based on something called "Tradezilla" -- a set of player valuation tools derived from an "artificial life" simulator. We simulated millions of seasons to determine which players (and player qualities) had the most value. This was great for evaluating players, but it didn't "think" the way real GMs think. That is, it couldn't identify personnel weaknesses and then actively construct trades to improve the team.

So, eight months ago, we started with a detailed analysis of over 1,000 trades and contract signings in Major League Baseball over the last decade. Four thousand lines of code later, Baseball Mogul 2014 has a completely new module that controls player signings, player trades, and roster management.

Player Ratings Are Like Cheating

Player Ratings are the other problem that can make previous versions of Baseball Mogul too easy. If you have a choice between 2 players in the draft, you pick the one with the 93 Peak Rating over the one with the 83 Peak Rating, every time.

I'll be back in a few days with my thoughts on player ratings. Until then, thanks for reading.

So there you have it. It sounds like the AI has been either upgraded or completely rewritten. Considering that the biggest complaint of most of the people who have been playing this game for years is how absurdly easy it is to dominate a league, this has the potential to bring a lot of us back into the fold.

Also those who for some ungodly reason think PBP is the most important thing in the game, you will have players of different races and team colors apparently. No infield dirt as of yet though.

[cadmus2166]

Wow, I am hopeful about improvements for the first time in years!

[ChrisJNelson]

Certainly good to hear. I hate how dead the info is until March.

[TheLeviathan]

I love it....the end to scouting staff and farm money being a magic formula? No more pixie dust on prospects (farm) and no more psychic scouts (scouting) would be a godsend for this game. Happy to hear this Clay!

[TheFifthDoctor]

Sounds like Mogul 2014 is shaping up to pretty exciting. Can't wait for it to come out. Thanks, Clay!

Be awesome if we can replicate the late 70s/early 80s rainbow Astros uniform with this new uniform creator function.

[Big Mikey]

Well at least he admits his product has been a peice of crap for single player all these years. Happy to hear that he is attempting to fix that problem. Not sure what he means by not having ratings though. Even in real life your scouts give you a numerical rating. Hopefully in doing this he's also fixed the arm glitch as well.

[Pete4256]

Be awesome if we can replicate the late 70s/early 80s rainbow Astros uniform with this new uniform creator function.

From what I see depicted online that won't be possible. This same kind of uniform option was included with the game Front Page Sports: Baseball'98. That old game even had stripes on the sleeves to change and leg stockings (ie more options), so, this a good first start.

My concern is we know there is going to be another major change with the playoffs next season. Is this option upgrade going to be included this year or NOT? If not, I figure I'll pass this year again and wait to purchase BM2015 next year. I think, I could be happy with BM15 once all the new MLB changes are included for awhile and just update that version for several years.

Regards
Pete4256

[MichelleWie]

I'll believe it when I see it. Considering that a lot of the bugs haven't been fixed from last years game, I won't hold my breath. Even on Mogul the game is way to easy.

[daves]

Mogul has been a fun game regardless. Not sure what will change besides uniforms with Mogul 2014 since it is so close to opening day. I know there are a lot of changes people love to see, but I would love the ability to turn off play by play graphics only. The rest of the requested features are utilized with other baseball sims.

[ARC_Troopa_Nate]

Part 2 is up!

http://thegamedesigner.blogspot.com/...rt-2.html#more

[TheLeviathan]

*Fingers-crossed the inability to play position players at multiple spots is fixed*

The more I play Mogul 13, the more this ruins my experience. I basically have to have a backup for every specific position on my team in case of injury, versatility is gone.

[daves]

Part 2 is up!

http://thegamedesigner.blogspot.com/...rt-2.html#more

Basically this post is telling us to play the game with random scouting or poor level scouting and you will find the game more challenging. I can do that with the current versions. I wonder what else will be added to the game besides team colors?

[TheLeviathan]

Basically this post is telling us to play the game with random scouting or poor level scouting and you will find the game more challenging. I can do that with the current versions. I wonder what else will be added to the game besides team colors?

The scouting system has long needed an overhaul. See: Magic Pixie Dust. But it is long past time we saw some serious changes, the last few versions haven't been worth paying for as the previous poster astutely points out.

[Lex Logan]

I play with Perfect Scouting and Equalized Farm and Medical, so I can't get an edge on the AI with magic pixie dust. And the AI seems to demand reasonable value for trades -- you can't trade a bunch of junk players for a good one or a prospect. But what the AI lacks is any sort of plan -- if a trade looks "fair", it will agree, even though the team doesn't need another right-hand-hitting first-baseman. Secondly the AI appears to ruin prospects by slow promotion, and not insuring only one player is at each position per level. The auto-sort buttons are horrible, I wish I could disable them, but they clearly show how bad the AI is at placing talent.

[etothep]

I have completely given up on this game ever being anything close to entertaining or playable in single player

That said, I'd be fine with a change to the rating system, rating changes having a tie to player performance (overperforming players are more apt to get jumps while underperformers are more likely to get drops), & to have minor league stats actually matter