Perfect Team 2.0 - Overview & new stuff!
 

The second version of Perfect Team is part of OOTP 20, and we have changed a few things and added some awesome new features. Here's a quick overview.

Cards

There are about 3000 cards available on launch day. About 800 of the new 2019 MLB Live cards plus about 2200 historical cards. We will have weekly content updates, all year round.

The 2019 MLB Live cards will receive weekly rating updates throughout the regular season, based on real life performance. So it's entirely possible that some unknown rookie being rated a 52 card ends up as a 87 Gold at the end of the season. So, think twice before quick-selling that potential diamond in the rough. ;)

For the historical cards we have replaced the "Top WAR" category with "Hardware Heroes", so players who won major awards in a year. Further, the "Historical Legend" category cards are now based on a new rating algorithm, which takes the peak performances of a single year for each of the rating categories. The result are really awesome cards, most of them being Perfect (about 50 total).

Graphically, we have fine-tuned and improved the existing card templates, created a brand new template for the 2010+ historical cards and designed a brand new MLB Live card template. Daniel did an amazing job here, and I am sure you'll love the new cards.

Card odds will be the same as in OOTP 19. However, historical cards are now a bit more common (3 out of 10) than in OOTP 19 (2.5 out of 10) for cards rated 60 or higher.

League system

We have added one level below Bronze, which we call "Iron", taking the total number of levels to 6. This will result in team quality differences between levels being a bit less tough than in OOTP 19.

After the launch on March 22 (which is a Friday) teams will spend 3 days in the Entry Pool. On the first promotion / relegation round on Monday, March 25, we will populate the first three levels, based on team performance in the Entry Pool (minimum 30 games, teams with less than 30 games go to the Iron level automatically). After that, it's business as usual and the levels will fill up over the next 3 weeks.

Another change will be that at least 4 teams will be promoted & relegated each week, in OOTP the lower limit was 2 teams (based on current league structure).

Beta

On March 18, when pre-order customers get the final beta build of the game, Perfect Team will be live, too. However, you will not be able to buy PP and only Entry Pool play will happen. On March 21 everything will be reset, so that everybody starts brand new on launch day, March 22.

Tournaments

This is probably the biggest new feature of PT this year. However, it won't be completed for launch, we are still working on this and will roll out the feature via updates in April.

There will be many different tournaments available at all times. They will vary in sizes (quick tournaments may have 8 teams, the big ones up to 128) and rule sets (some have a "salary cap", some are only for historical cards, some will be with DH and some without, some are best of 1, others best of 3/5/7 per round etc.). Some torunaments start immediately when the number of teams is reached, some will start at a fixed date & time. Tournaments run concurrently with regular leagues and you can participate in up to 3 tournaments at the same time.

Prizes will be Perfect Points, packs and even super rare special edition cards. Depending on tournament type and size these prizes will vary, sometimes only the winner takes home something, other times all the semi-finalists will etc. We will experiment with this during the year.

Collection Missions

This is another new feature we will roll out after the launch, probably late April / early May. Essentially, there will be missions to collect a certain set of cards, and once completed, you'll get a reward (exclusive cards / packs). Cards from finished collections can not be sold, they get locked.

More
- We have added about 20 new achievements, most focusing on pitching & defense
- We will improve the auction house, adding a Watchlist, better sorting / filtering, more meaningful stats etc.
- Mass-quickselling of cards will be possible from the collection list
- You will be able to access a proper league history report from past leagues you played in
- You can view info /standings / stats from other leagues in the universe
- There will be a universe-wide record book and leaderboards.

OK, that's it! I am sure we will do more tweaks & improvements throughout the year via free updates, after all you guys often come up with great ideas and we want to shape PT in a way so that all types of users enjoy it. :)

Questions? Thoughts?

Cheers,
Markus

PS: And no, there will never be a "free-to-play-only" league system in Perfect Team, let's not beat that dead horse again, please. :D

That all sounds extremely fun and addicting. Do tournaments run concurrently with regular leagues? This should be a fun year in OOTP.

Yes, tournaments run concurrently with regular leagues. You can participate in up to 3 tournaments at the same time.

I'll add this info to my post :)

Will tournaments have entry fees (either in cash or in PP)?

If we collect cards in March/April and just happen to have all the cards in a collection by the time that feature is released in April/May, will we get credit for completing that collection mission automatically?

Do you plan to provide more details about the method you'll be using to update the Live cards? This could change the game significantly, the details will determine how much.

1) No entry fees.
2) Yes.

Well, we use the season total stats, park-neutralize & normalize them and then, depending of the total sample size, we factor them into the ratings. For example, at the end of the season the ratings will be based 90% on real life stats (+10 % initial ratings) for all players who played the full season and 45% (+55% initial ratings) for guys who only played half a season (eg. 300 PA).

I'm only in my third week of PT and wishing I had started it sooner. Lots of fun, looking forward to the next season. It has replaced fifa ultimate team for me, the collection missions sound pretty similar to squad building challenges which are a fun feature

Can my 71-rated Craig Swan pitch in the normal league system *and* f.e. a Silver Tournament at the same time, or do I Need a second Craig Swan card for that, or can I still only efficiently use one instance of any one player and need to find a different loveable silver starter entirely?

Any awards/cards given to those who participated in OOTP 19 perfect leagues? Any carryover from 19? If we purchased AND earned perfect points, will any carry over to the new game? If so, how will carryover be determined?

kinda drawing off Westheim's post... if there's a tourney game and a regular season game on the same day, will that act like a double-header?


I assume there won't be a separate "tourney lineup/roster", so if you want to qualify for a 'historical tourney', you can't have any "Live 2019" cards on your 25 man roster?

I believe the plan will be that you can create separate rosters for the tournaments. So you need to own all cards for each, but there should be nothing stopping you from playing in an "all-silver" tournament and an "all-gold" tournament at the same time, while your regular league team is still just your starter pack.

I am already hooked on PT so I am just waiting...

This all sounds very amazing!

My one humble suggestion might be to eventually have Salary Cap be its own full-time 162-game league sitting along-side the normal unrestricted league. One thing to hash out might be what the reserve roster would look like in this format - perhaps it is strictly a 25-active, 15-reserve roster, and everyone participating must be at exactly 40 players with X cap value. Moving cards between your collection and the active/reserve roster during the week when games are executing would need to be disabled.

I think adding the second Salary Cap weekly league would help keep engagement high as the season wears on and even the free-to-play guys have buffed teams. You can't just disregard the iron and low bronze guys by rule because some of them could be nice role players on your Salary Cap team. You could call the second league the "Perfect Manager" league. Thanks for considering.

All of the new additions sound great and will make the game more fun and I look forward to seeing them, except for...

The Historical Legends. I know I am but a single voice. But I find the historical PT card equivalent of a best-ball golf tournament to be a repulsive abomination. As a baseball historian, they make me cringe. At least the Future Legends cards have the potential to maybe someday match their ratings. The Historical Legends are something that never happened. If you guys want to make fictional star cards, maybe you can make Roy Hobbs, Sidd Finch or Willie Mays Hayes?

Yes, Tournaments are completely seperate from regular league play.

There is no carryover from OOTP 19 to 20. In OOTP 20 everybody starts from scratch, otherwise some users would have an unfair advantage.

Will we be able to see a list of the cards we haven't collected yet?

I disagree completely. The composite ratings of the Historical Legends are based on individual seasons which in fact did happen. Where's the difference to the OOTP 19 Legends, there the ratings were based on an arbitrary array of X peak seasons, so in your argument this combined stats set never happened either.

We have not decided this yet.There are pros and cons to making the list public from the start.