[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah TBH I feel like there are more than a few people who think of OOTP as a season simulator like SOM or DMB only cheaper since you don't have to pay for individual seasons. It's just plain not that. The game "replays" seasons by having the Lahman database and generating players from that. The algorithms work fairly well but I don't think you'll ever get the straight-up feel of "yeah this is actually 1975" or whatever that you will get from games where the people who make them curate individual seasons by hand. For instance, SOM (which is also a game I played a fair amount of prior to OOTP) grades players on a 1-5 scale in fielding based on their reputation and (probably) a few stats. As a result when you play, for instance, a 1985 sim you can be sure that Ozzie Smith will be one of the best if not the best shortstops in the league. In OOTP, it all depends on what the algorithms spit out.

Honestly I find that if anything the fact that OOTP is like 95% as good as those games at doing single-season replays is kind of a major indictment of SOM/DMB/APBA/et al. Does SOM take into account FIP yet? The game isn't really built for that (APBA kind of is but IIRC pitchers are very, very basic in that game). I think a lot of the hard work that SOM in particular had to do in, say, the 80s and 90s in researching lefty/righty stats and so on is just not all that hard to do anymore and quite frankly I prefer the OOTP 3-year-calc system where a Roger Maris is not going to necessarily average 61 HRs a season (because IMO he should not) but also won't produce as many 70 HR years as 50 HR years. But that bit in particular is a design decision and if you really, really want Roger Maris to act like that, that is absolutely what SOM and DMB will do for you.

I feel like if you really want this stuff, feel free to buy both OOTP and DMB or SOM or, hell, all 3. I personally have gone way over to the side of playing fictional/historical teams, which you just plain can't do in those games (which is not an indictment; one may as well complain that they can't play checkers on a backgammon board) but YMMV and by all means, play the games you want to play.

Exactly. And agreed.