Good House Rules?
 

It's been a while since I really dug into the OOTP game, but I'm buying XX and fixin' to gin up a new career.

Anyone have useful tips to a non-expert OOTPer, but someone generally savvy (and shrewd) enough to fairly quickly find exploits and end-runs, etc? Stuff that I ought to load into my own set of "house rules" to create a long term challenge?

Basically you can't claim anyone on the waiver wire or use trade on anything less than hard.

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Based on what others have suggested in the forums, in my current game I'm limiting myself to making one successful waiver claim per year and one Rule 5 Draft pick every other year.

Otherwise it seems unrealistic to be able to pick up numerous decent players on waivers and the AI doesn't always do a good job of protecting who it should from the rule 5 Draft. I think this is better than just turning off Rule 5 because then the human player might be able to stockpile talent with no fear of losing them (haven't actually tested that in a game though).

I also have trades on very hard and heavily favor prospects.

I'm finding it is working well though of course, it's a harder and slower job to improve the team - maybe more realistic therefore?

Another advantage is that once you make your waiver pick you can happily ignore the waiver wire for the rest of the year! Previously I've looked at the waiver wire almost daily which gets to be an obsessive chore!

challenge mode trade defaults are alright, except I can only do it if my assistant also agrees with at least "fair as it stands". And no adding in random prospects or money once there is a trade just to check if they will still do it.

waivers dont seem that easy to abuse to me at least in quickstart challenge mode, I almost never find anyone useful and I started as miami who need a full new roster.

I haven't played in Challenge mode but in default mode I found numbers of players on waivers in the off season who were on minor league contracts. In one game I claimed about 20 such players who were pretty useful pieces and they went straight into my minor system without needing further waivers - it was like having an extra draft! This made it seem very unrealistic and "too easy" which was when I started looking for house rule guidelines.So my other house rule is never to claim a player on waivers who is on a minor league contract (my guess is that they should not be appearing on waivers in the first case).

Trades on the hardest setting, of course. That's still too easy, so here are my house rules on trades:

1) I can only shop a player once a year, and I can't shop players until a full year has passed since I traded for them or signed them to a major-league contract as a free agent. That doesn't mean I can't trade players outside of those parameters, just that the other team has to ask for them. For purposes of this rule the new year starts the day after the trading deadline. I make one exception -- a guy who is DFAed and is about to be released can be shopped one extra time during the DFA period.

2) I keep a record of each team that made an offer for a shopped player. When dickering on a trade offer, I can only add players that team has made an offer for when I shopped them. It doesn't have to be a sincere offer -- it can be that guy they offer any time you shop anybody -- but they have to have made an offer. You'd be surprised at the differences in style. Some teams almost never respond to shopped players, some teams almost always respond.

3) When negotiating on an opposing team's trade offer, at least one of the players they asked for and one of the players they offered has to stay in the deal. If it's the classic one-for-one offer for a shopped player, they both have to stay in, but other guys can be added. If it's an offer that was not in response to a player I shopped, it's just one on each side.

4) Some of my house rules are just to keep me from spending all of my time noodling around on trades and never playing any games. For example, if I shop a player and there's more than one screenful of players offered in response, I'm only allowed to look at the ones with at least 2.5-star potential ratings. This applies even if I shopped a guy I would gladly unload for a reserve ballboy, just to get rid of his contract.

5) I don't make direct offers, I just shop. And I can only put a player on the trading block if he asks to be traded.

These are arbitrary rules and some of them are just to get me to get on with the game, or to avoid damaging morale. But I find they provide some structure and keep me from feeling that I made it too easy on myself.

yeah minor league contract player on waivers seems weird. I never check during the off-season anyway and usually only remember once a weekish during the regular season for that matter

I give myself a bit of internal salary cap. At the end of the season what ever is the average player payroll of all the teams is the most i can spend heading into the next season. Makes it harder for me to just buy myself good team that way.

I do something similar I try and make sure I'm out of the top 5 in highest league payrolls. Many teams will be flush with cash and will not spend and I'm always maxing out my budget so this stops me from just buying everyone because other teams refuse to spend.

I have found self imposed payroll caps are effective.

Many thanks for the tips

I have trades on hard, ratings on 1-10 and pretty much run with the rest at defaults. I do have DH enabled in both leagues, active rosters at 26 players with 13P/13H, no waiver trades after the trading deadline and expanded rosters are set to 28 players.

I am using the Cardinals starting with OOTP 19, so I do have an advantage due to my market size and fan base. I will say though, I'm in 2029 and have only been to 2 World Series and lost both of them.

Last season, 2028 I missed the playoffs by one game, so the game has definitely been a challenge.

I don't have to worry about that, as I am using the Royals. will never be near a top 5 payroll https://1865987047.rsc.cdn77.org/boa...lies/laugh.gif

It depends if you want harder or easier. I take away all rights of a player objection to be sent down for instance. I would like to see more choices, for instance two commissioner modes I don't want to force trades, but I do want to be able to do stuff within my team. In past sims I had a rule that only teams with at least 82 wins could qualify for the post season. So I'd like to implement that.