Difficulty Level

[atlantafan5656]

What is the best way to increase the difficulty level of the game? I know that there is an option to increase the trading difficulty. Is this the main way to alter the challenge level of the game?

[Russ]

Turn off ratings and go stats only. You'll never go back.

[RchW]

What is your current WS record?

[atlantafan5656]

The last two games Ive played I have taken over the worst team in the league and starting after 2 or 3 years i rattle off 5 consecutive world series championships in a row and at that point just started a new game. I love the game but I need to do something to make it more difficult. I feel like taking away ratings would make it unrealistic. In real life you do have scouts that help you determine how good a player is going to be several years down the road. I changed from the stars rating system to 20 to 80 ratings a long time ago.

[andymac]

You still have the written (text) scouting reports when you go stat only.

[atlantafan5656]

If I still have the text then I will give that a try. That sounds like a pretty good option.

[1998 Yankees]

This is a set of notes that I file away a couple of years ago but I think still applies. It's a compilation of stuff I read here in the forums:

Ways To Increase The Challenge Of The Game

The hardest way to play this game would be to turn off ratings completely, including overall/potential ratings. Scouts still recommend players in their reports but give no ratings. Decisions must be made based solely on scouting reports and player performance, not artificial player ratings.

Rather than turning ratings off, a less drastic step would be to use more difficult rating scales: 1-5, 2-8, 20-80; the narrower the range of numbers, the less precise the ratings. For a greater challenge, turn off overall/potential ratings and use only the player ability ratings.

Turn on scouts and coaches. Scouts lend imprecision to player assessment and competing for the best coaches to develop your players is also more challenging than having all teams on an even playing field in this regard.

When playing with coaches on, respect your personnel contracts and don't immediately dump good ones in order to grab better ones.

In the draft, send only one scout and use his reports and SISA for your picks. When you send several scouts, it's too easy to see which prospects are best; those are the ones your scouts agree on.

Do not use international scouting, which seems to heavily favor the human player. If you do, only sign players under 18 years of age for your team, and at the same time sign a few players over 18 years old that you find and immediately release them to free agency for other teams to pick up.

Set AI trading AI to hard or very hard. Also, set AI trading preference to favoring prospects. In this game, trading veterans for prospects is often a winning strategy and trading preference should at least be left to neutral to avoid an unfair advantage to a human player who knows this.

Reduce the market size, fan loyalty, and fan interest settings for your team, then let the owner control your budget. Or, lower the cash, revenue, and budget numbers yourself.

Force yourself to carry at least one Rule 5 player each year; given the quality usually seen in the Rule 5 draft, this will be a handicap for you.

Expand the league, run an expansion draft where teams can protect the maximum number of players possible, and take over an expansion team.

Raise injury frequency (if you can stand to lose your superstars to career ending injuries); this at least introduces some randomness in the game, since even the best teams can become mediocre if they lose a couple of stars to injury.

Avoid "house rules" like refusing all trades, not signing free agents, etc. because this negates the realism of the game.

The ultimate challenge of the game is playing in online leagues against fellow human players who know as much or more than you do about the game.

[1998 Yankees]

Actually, this is obsolete:

In the draft, send only one scout and use his reports and SISA for your picks. When you send several scouts, it's too easy to see which prospects are best; those are the ones your scouts agree on.

I will substitute "Spend no more than the league average in your Scouting Budget."

[1998 Yankees]

By the way, you posted your thread in the upcoming OOTP 12 forum. My comments apply to OOTP 11 (now that I have corrected the one instance of obsolescence). More of my comments may become obsolete in OOTP 12!

[SATW]

Some of my house rules:

• Trading Hard, Favor Prospects
• No more than 3 trades per year.
• Can’t extend players until after season and can only extend arbitration eligible players or players whose contracts are up or are going to be up next year
• Payroll can’t exceed 70 mil. Can’t have payroll over 55 mil for 2 straight years. If payroll is over 55 mil, I must give up 1st and 2nd round draft picks. Only way I can exceed 55 mil. is through trades(mostly mid-season), not free agency.
• Can't claim players on waivers.

Trading General Guidelines: I try to make trades that are realistic and benefit both sides. For example:

1. Can't use shop a player.
2. Trades for veteran players can only be made if the team I'm trading with is clearly out of the playoff race. In this case, I try to avoid trading prospects that play the same position as the other team's good players(assuming they are young and/or locked up for a while) and avoid trading for players that are locked up for a while. Most of these deals are half-season rentals.
3. Can only trade veterans to teams who are in the playoff race and do not have an adequate player at that position.
4. Rarely do I make trades for young, good players. It's either a veteran to push my team over the top for the playoffs, or prospects in AA or lower if I'm selling at the deadline.
5. No more than 4 players per team.

I probably have some more that I don't have written down, but these definitely make the game harder and more fun, to me at least. Another thing I've toyed with is the draft budget. Ex: I can only spend (55 million-payroll) dollars on bonuses, but I haven't really found a good number yet.

[KGrob]

Originally Posted by atlantafan5656

The last two games Ive played I have taken over the worst team in the league and starting after 2 or 3 years i rattle off 5 consecutive world series championships in a row and at that point just started a new game. I love the game but I need to do something to make it more difficult. I feel like taking away ratings would make it unrealistic. In real life you do have scouts that help you determine how good a player is going to be several years down the road. I changed from the stars rating system to 20 to 80 ratings a long time ago.

Some of you guys are very good.

When I take over a team (I take a bad one though), it takes me at least 4 or 5 years to get competitive. After that, I still might not make it to the playoffs every season. I normally don't play more than ten seasons, however. I like the challenge of taking over the worst team and trying to turn it around...that's where I get my fun.

[TGH-Adfabre]

Originally Posted by atlantafan5656

What is the best way to increase the difficulty level of the game? I know that there is an option to increase the trading difficulty. Is this the main way to alter the challenge level of the game?

Join an experienced and active online league. I love competeing against real GMs.

[mjj55409]

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

Join an experienced and active online league. I love competeing against real GMs.

+1. Most of the techniques around increasing difficulty involve setting things up to not take advantage of the AI. Online leagues take the AI out of the equation.

[Mntwins]

What I do is turn off trading and I can't I have the highest payroll in the league. Also I leave scouting spending at league average.

This has made a big difference and has made the game fun for me at least.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

Join an experienced and active online league. I love competeing against real GMs.

You won't find a more hyper-active, hyper competitive league than the GUBA.

(shameless plug)

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

Join an experienced and active online league. I love competeing against real GMs.

"You can't cheat an honest man."

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by atlantafan5656

The last two games Ive played I have taken over the worst team in the league and starting after 2 or 3 years i rattle off 5 consecutive world series championships in a row and at that point just started a new game. I love the game but I need to do something to make it more difficult. I feel like taking away ratings would make it unrealistic. In real life you do have scouts that help you determine how good a player is going to be several years down the road. I changed from the stars rating system to 20 to 80 ratings a long time ago.

One thing I've done to make it harder is change the rating range from 20-80 down to 1-20 or even 1-10. That will up the difficulty some.

[Curtis]

I changed the coaches' and scouts' ratings to 1-5, figuring that was a close as anyone could gauge those abilities anyway. That helps keep me from monopolizing all the best personnel.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by TLB1975

One thing I've done to make it harder is change the rating range from 20-80 down to 1-20 or even 1-10. That will up the difficulty some.

1-10 actuals, 1-5 potential. I did that for a while but only switched to 1-20, 1-10 to match what I always saw in my online league.

[tejdog1]

IDK what you guys do, but I've found the game hard enough without all that stuff, lol. I've got the ratings scale as 1-100, potential/overall 20-80, trading at hard/favor prospects, and I've only won the WS 3 times, been there 5 times in 15 years.

Had three straight mid 60 win teams, even if overall I've had a very good GM-ship. Been at or over .500 for 12 of those 15 seasons, with 5 division titles, 5 pennants, 3 WS wins, 8 playoff appearances, but hardly anything resembling a dynasty. (I guess what I'm currently in the midst of could count?)

2019: 88-74 (lost LDS) wild card
2020: 97-65 (lost LCS) won division
2021: 101-61 (won WS) won division

2022: 102-60 (won WS) won division
2023: 114-54 (lost NLDS) won division
2024: 100-68 (lost WS) wild card