How difficult is the game?

[rowech]

I've been playing the demo and in four season, I've won the series twice. Mid to late 80s Reds which were good teams but not great teams. I've been to the playoffs the other two years as well. I know the game can always be made tough by choosing teams, etc. but I wonder if the game will prove to be difficult over the long haul. Experiences? I'd like to know that I'll have to rebuild from time to time, etc.

[SC_Dawg]

Originally Posted by rowech

I've been playing the demo and in four season, I've won the series twice. Mid to late 80s Reds which were good teams but not great teams. I've been to the playoffs the other two years as well. I know the game can always be made tough by choosing teams, etc. but I wonder if the game will prove to be difficult over the long haul. Experiences? I'd like to know that I'll have to rebuild from time to time, etc.

The game can be as difficult as you make it on yourself. Many of the people here find it much more of a challenge to play the game in online leagues while other like to replay historical seasons and a 3rd option of many folks is creating dynasties that the chronicle on the boards.

[edm]

Human players will always have the advantage over the AI. If you are willing to follow self imposed "house rules", as many of us do, it can make the game more challenging.

Some of the basic house rules I follow:
1. Team imposed salary cap. Usually, at most, no more than 100M. Less if you want to make it more challenging. You can also mess with the teams financial settings to achieve the same thing. IE, lower your market size, tv revenue, etc.

2. Trade limits. I usually limit myself to 2-3 trades per season.

3. All trades have to be 1 player for 1 player. It's a lot easier to fleece the AI when you package 3-4 player for one.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by edm

Human players will always have the advantage over the AI. If you are willing to follow self imposed "house rules", as many of us do, it can make the game more challenging.

Some of the basic house rules I follow:
1. Team imposed salary cap. Usually, at most, no more than 100M. Less if you want to make it more challenging. You can also mess with the teams financial settings to achieve the same thing. IE, lower your market size, tv revenue, etc.

2. Trade limits. I usually limit myself to 2-3 trades per season.

3. All trades have to be 1 player for 1 player. It's a lot easier to fleece the AI when you package 3-4 player for one.

AI should be tighten up even more, so we don't need to use house rules.

[The Wolf]

Turn off ratings and play with stats only. It will make the game a lot harder.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by edm

Human players will always have the advantage over the AI. If you are willing to follow self imposed "house rules", as many of us do, it can make the game more challenging.

Some of the basic house rules I follow:
1. Team imposed salary cap. Usually, at most, no more than 100M. Less if you want to make it more challenging. You can also mess with the teams financial settings to achieve the same thing. IE, lower your market size, tv revenue, etc.

2. Trade limits. I usually limit myself to 2-3 trades per season.

3. All trades have to be 1 player for 1 player. It's a lot easier to fleece the AI when you package 3-4 player for one.

I don't play with any house rules, and still find the game very very challenging. It all depends on what settings you use.

[Syd Thrift]

To an extent, the game is easy to keep it playable. IRL if you went to a GM with a way-below-value trade offer, he'd laugh you off and not even listen to later deals. He sure as heck wouldn't sit there while you slowly increased value until you reached the lowest level of what he considered "fair". If he stayed there at all with you, it might be to try and return the "I'm gonna fleece this guy" trick right back at you. Unfortunately, the trade AI won't send you anything more than once a day to keep the game from being about micromanaging trade requests, so that's one advantage you'll have for the forseeable future.

I still like my old-skool idea of assigning bad-boy points to GMs who mess around with the order of baseball a la the Europa Universalis series. Think of the Yankees in the 50s and 60s who were basically stuck with trading with the Kansas City A's for a while because nobody else would stay in the same room with their GM for more than 15 minutes at a time. Or the problems Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley had with getting the league to allow them to do basic things with their franchises like move them out of horrendously bad situations (like Veeck in St. Louis or Finley in Oakland). The AI right now is too much like a set of 30 Billy Beane wannabes and not enough like the old boys' club that MLB was up until the 70s.

[edm]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Turn off ratings and play with stats only. It will make the game a lot harder.

True that. And do it with a fictional league to make it ever more difficult

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

To an extent, the game is easy to keep it playable. IRL if you went to a GM with a way-below-value trade offer, he'd laugh you off and not even listen to later deals. He sure as heck wouldn't sit there while you slowly increased value until you reached the lowest level of what he considered "fair". If he stayed there at all with you, it might be to try and return the "I'm gonna fleece this guy" trick right back at you. Unfortunately, the trade AI won't send you anything more than once a day to keep the game from being about micromanaging trade requests, so that's one advantage you'll have for the forseeable future.

I still like my old-skool idea of assigning bad-boy points to GMs who mess around with the order of baseball a la the Europa Universalis series. Think of the Yankees in the 50s and 60s who were basically stuck with trading with the Kansas City A's for a while because nobody else would stay in the same room with their GM for more than 15 minutes at a time. Or the problems Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley had with getting the league to allow them to do basic things with their franchises like move them out of horrendously bad situations (like Veeck in St. Louis or Finley in Oakland). The AI right now is too much like a set of 30 Billy Beane wannabes and not enough like the old boys' club that MLB was up until the 70s.

This is why I never liked the idea of having your manager tell you what he thinks of the trade, as well as the feedback from the other GM. You would be forced to put together a reasonable deal if you just had to propose the trade, and then fax it without all the feedback. I don't really like the shop option either. To me, putting a player on the trade block IS shopping him.

[conception]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

This is why I never liked the idea of having your manager tell you what he thinks of the trade, as well as the feedback from the other GM. You would be forced to put together a reasonable deal if you just had to propose the trade, and then fax it without all the feedback. I don't really like the shop option either. To me, putting a player on the trade block IS shopping him.

To me it is more reasonable to have the trade system the way it is than a fax one offer over and wait for a response. In online leagues, many trades are done through discussion on aim, which is much more akin to gradually putting a trade together.

[Giants44]

I use the "shop player" and "make this work" buttons quite a bit, but I found that before they made their way back into the game and you had to make trade offers, and counter offers and it took a long time to make a trade - that the game was much more challenging.

Of course I could ignore these buttons now and go old school, but I find I seldom have the patience.

Also at least in my experience, post season excellence has frequently been harder to come by then regular season excellence.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Giants44

I use the "shop player" and "make this work" buttons quite a bit, but I found that before they made their way back into the game and you had to make trade offers, and counter offers and it took a long time to make a trade - that the game was much more challenging.

Of course I could ignore these buttons now and go old school, but I find I seldom have the patience.

Also at least in my experience, post season excellence has frequently been harder to come by then regular season excellence.

I wonder if Markus would throw in an option not to have this displayed for those of us seeking a really tough challenge?? What do you say Markus? It would be the way it was in OOTP6. I liked it tough like that.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

I don't play with any house rules, and still find the game very very challenging. It all depends on what settings you use.

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[Metsvir2]

I've never traded or signed another team's free agent in my ongoing dynasty

Draft baby