[Cluboris]

Originally Posted by FantasyDrafter

I honestly take nothing personally - this has been a really active thread and people are passionate, that’s good. That people can use the software in many different ways is great. I simply recognize there are game restraints and I’m not trying to read a history book. Rather than watch fate unfold I’d like as much influence as I can have without ruining what makes the game good.

OOTP has a game engine that year to year typically behaves in a believable way. Personally I am only interested what is going to happen with my “players” from Opening Day of that year’s version and I may play 100 years on a single save if I’m engaged enough. I set strategies, do daily lineups quite often or set strict rest rules, but I don't usually watch the pixels move. If I wanted to do that I would play a different game, others love that part. The future baseball world is fiction, but believable outcomes typically with this series. The team also is trying to please people who only play historical, which personally I don’t find enjoyable but that’s their thing. A small subset of that group probably think the game is broken if Nolan Ryan only throws 2 no-hitters in his career.

Do I think that anyone has accurately measured the intelligence level of every player in MLB history or their ability to handle success? Obviously no, but clearly along the way there were decisions made to include those in the math equations / dice rolls / rock, paper, scissors the game uses to approximate statistical behavior in baseball. That’s really what I’m talking about when I say I know I am playing a game.

My guess is the pull of the history crowd is very strong and adding new layers like this one comes at the risk of upsetting them. I hope they still take that risk.

If you were watching baseball in 1988, there is no way you could have predicted what it would look like in 1998. Players focused on “different things”. It worked for some, others were ruined, some player types became obsolete and really have not returned. I don’t want the ability to turn Javy Baez into a contact hitter who walks, I want the ability to make it more likely that Javy Baez turns into a guy who washes out at A ball because he focused on the wrong things and it was a bad decision - by me, the only person who is actively adding inputs into my game. I would also personally think it was just fine if sometimes by focusing on the right thing for how the math plays out I see a guy jump 5mph from when he enters the league and go on an unexpected run of dominance - not because I turn up the randomness slider or get luck one time in the Lab, but because I improved their odds with my decisions over a period of time, and it is clear that is what happened.

I guess I want less to feel like only fate combined with luck and more to feel like choice, coupled of course with some good or bad luck in the dice rolls. Good and bad. Do I expect this to be a free for all? Absolutely not and I recognize it can mess up the engine, but I am hoping for a little more impact.

Love this post. I couldn't have said it better myself.