Appeal of Perfect Team

[GlennN]

I am asking this sincerely, not in any way sarcastically or judgmentally. I genuinely do not understand the appeal of this. Can you folks explain the appeal of Perfect Team? I mean, I enjoy the collecting aspect, but I don't understand the appeal beyond that. How is assembling a team without scouting, trading or drafting showing any accomplishment on the gamer's part? I love OOTP, but I only play as GM (simming all games). I am thinking that is the disconnect? Perfect Team gamers enjoy the managing aspect? Appreciate any thoughts on this - I am just curious.

[HRBaker]

When my brother and I were kids, we collected baseball cards, We also had a game called Earl Gillespie's Baseball Game which was simply a deck of cards with play results. We would draft a team from our collection and play games.


After a while we wanted to make sure the Mickey Mantle's of the world hit more homeruns than others, so we bought more copies of the EG game and devised specific card decks to simulate "Star", "Regular", and "Rookie" players - assigning guys like Mantle to the Star deck. This was a similar concept to the novel "Universal Baseball Association" by Robert Coover.


This is "basically" what PT is... collect the best cards you can and play games agaisnt others who have done the same thing. Add in a number of different ways to get better cards, including buying them, and you also turn a profit for the developers.

[Leo_The_Lip]

I've played every version of PT from the first public BETA to PT22. Unfortunately I have watched the design of the game change to the point where all the baseball fun has been sucked out of it.

In the first years, I could play a greatest defensive players team and win enough to be fun. One season myself and some others set about trying to have teams that broke the record for the most walks recieved by a team. Those were fun options that the recent influx of craptastic 100 cards has made impossible.

So I fear my stay in PT23 will be brief and disapointing.

But maybe not.

As Mark Twain said of the possibility of the French understanding democracy, "I hope so, but I doubt it."

[Syd Thrift]

It's essentially OOTP's version of the "vs" games that are a big part of MLB: The Show and Madden now. I played the two-years-ago version for a bit before I got bored / disappointed with the lack of crackdown on certain types of unfair play and had the same experience last year albeit with a shorter "fun factor" period. I think the strength of it is that, especially early on, you're trying to figure out the meta and working on building up a team to compete against real, actual people.

Also, completely not my cup of tea but let's face it, the gacha aspect is very compelling to some people. There is TBF a bit of a rush when you go in and buy a few packs and come out with that 1 in 10,000 Diamond card. It's fun to people who like that kind of thing, a little extra dopamine rush, etc. Also, relatedly, there are little "missions" you can complete within the game to unlock various cards that are sometimes good and sometimes not but often feature players you have an affinity for for some reason. I know last year I actually dumped (a little bit of) money into the game so that I could get the Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre upgradeable cards; those were two of my favorite Mariners ever and it was fun having them on my teams.

I will say that I'd really like there to be more options and, perhaps going against the tide of some, more different types of cards to collect. I kind of hate that MLB: The Show runs a similar game type except that you actually play against opponents in real time as an arcade experience and yet that game has more of these kinds of options. Specifically I'd love ballparks (you want to have your park play a certain way? Use a ballpark card; this might also allow people to have parks that aren't within that 90/110 constraint) and managers (you built a team that's all "3 run homeruns win ballgames"? Acquire Earl Weaver). To some degree that means that hardcore OOTP vets have less opportunity to fiddle around with their teams but to me that would be a feature rather than a bug.

[Fabtron7]

I've played OOTP for years and as soon as PT dropped I knew it was the mode I'd always wanted. For me the entire concept of it is super fun.

Why do I love it? I'd say there are a number of reason.

- HISTORY! I thought I knew a lot about baseball players until I started playing Perfect Team... Now I know about so many amazing players I had no clue existed like Eppa Rixey, Dave "Beauty" Bancroft, and King Kelly (just to name a few). Having historical guys be prominent players in the game has lead to me to read more about them... and their stories are often fascinating (King Kelly especially).

- Change: Perfect Team is constantly changing every 30 minutes, you're changing your team, your opponents are changing theirs. It's a constant and ever changing ecosystem that always gives me something to check on or tweak any time I want. That's not even factoring the sub-modes like tournaments and Perfect Drafts that sim every 10 minutes. It feels a lot more alive than just plodding along with my old 1983 replay.

- Community: This is a pretty big one. I have met and connected with SO many amazing people (mostly on the OOTP Discord) that have made the experience 1000% times better. I personally love this community of a few thousand (mostly) likeminded baseball nerds that are VERY willing to spitball about an aspect of the game at any time, or just talk about regular baseball. Are there bad apples out there that try sour the experience... for sure... it's the internet, and as a card carrying grown up I just brush off people like that.. But I've made some genuine friends that I never would have met without Perfect Team.

I'm probably leaving out a few things... but those are the most appealing things to me.

BRING ON PERFECT TEAM 23!

[GlennN]

Thanks guys! Yeah, I get the appeal of collecting cards (reliving our youth without the stick of absolutely terrible pink gum), and how those cards give us some insight into the history of the game. But playing out the games is just not my thing. I appreciate you guys sharing what makes it fun for you!

[TwanLX2000]

Originally Posted by GlennN

Thanks guys! Yeah, I get the appeal of collecting cards (reliving our youth without the stick of absolutely terrible pink gum), and how those cards give us some insight into the history of the game. But playing out the games is just not my thing. I appreciate you guys sharing what makes it fun for you!

Since I also initially purchased OOTP because I prefer to play GM, it never occurred to me that I was missing out on anything. I had purchased OOTP '19 during one of the year end discounts, and I felt like the universe available to direct a franchise through decades was enough appeal to justify the purchase.

After extensive play, I logged into PT for the first time just before the pandemic, as the servers were just about to stop simming '19. I opened the initial packs and played through a rookie level season and realized that I was essentially building a team by doing what I loved to do as a kid: open packs of cards. I think you'll find that most of the people that are an active part of the community (particularly those that are FTP) are squarely part of that generation that collected sometime between the early 80s and the '94 strike, and there's a comfortable memory associated with chasing cards through a baseball-related hobby. Nothing about collecting necessarily said anything about one's overall understanding of the game, but it was a tool to grow that knowledge.

I still approach PT as more of a GM than a manager; I enjoy building a team that can compete, and I don't do a lot of micro-managing throughout the week, aside from benching underperforming players and trying something else. The developers did me a favor this past season by diminishing the value of earning PP through wins/losses in the leagues, meaning that you're just as likely to open packs regardless of which league you're playing in. It's de-incentivized tanking and made the strive for a higher league less significant. I would say that my eventual jump to perfect league eleven-months-in was more a result of the process of collecting than because I managed my team any particular way. I just continued doing everything I could (quick tournaments, missions, etc.) to continue my flow of free packs.

That said, I think card collecting is still it's main draw, and for those who plan to buy their way to the top league, there's a mechanism for that as well. I think those that get frustrated tend to be those who want both as a chief motivator, and end up feeling empty in one or the other.

[kq76]

I wasn't into it at first, but I tried it a few times and I started to enjoy learning about more historical players. Playing regular OOTP with historical players doesn't really appeal to me (I like fictional), but when I got a card of a player I had never heard of or didn't know much about it would prompt me to look into him and I enjoy that a lot.

Sure, getting the odd high value card is a bit of a rush, but after a certain point it's all about historical 100s and the competing part has very little to do with real baseball so that doesn't propel me to need to be competitive. I just stick with my theme teams and then at some point drop out.

I think what would be wise is if they introduced some different kinds of cards, like managers and ballparks or even fictional players, that some physical tabletop card games, like Baseball Highlights 2045 and Bottom of the 9th, do.

Right now I'm looking forward to both the upcoming MLB season and regular OOTP23, but I'm not really looking forward to PT. Sure, I'm a little curious how they might change it up, but if they don't then I'm good, and not interested.

[Fabtron7]

I think the truth of it is that if you're looking for more compelling reasons to play Perfect Team you'd be better off in the discord chat where it's 100% people passionate about the mode. On the forum I'd say the split is more like 90/10 (10 percent being the people on here that actually actively play the mode). If you prefer the base game and all the amazing things it has to offer... you're probably in the right place

[Kushiel]

Collection is a big part of it. I started collecting cards as a kid in the 50's. Because of my love of collecting my fun increased with building a team to try to compete in PT. I loved the original game and still played a lot the first two editions of PT. But since PT21 and PT22 I have not even played a month of a season. Playing a game with my childhood heroes' cards is just too intoxicating for me.

I am with Syd being a proponent of Stadium Cards. It is great fun and realistic to build a team to fit your stadium. In PT you can rebuild your stadium every year with cheesy park factors. That is my biggest disappointment with the game. Everything else is pretty much peachy for me, especially if the Devs were reminded of Babe's .342 lifetime batting average.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by GlennN

How is assembling a team without scouting, trading or drafting showing any accomplishment on the gamer's part?

The accomplishment is achieving the top results without spending money against human players who do spend money and not AI (as in the base game). Online leagues are in a poor state right now and haven't changed much in nearly 20 years.

But, once you figure Perfect Team out, the game gets boring quickly and the base game against AI never did excite me.

I'm not even going to play for free even with Go! because of the bad experience I had being forced to delete practically one by one over 4000 worthless screenshots in my photo library that the game left behind. OOTP is absolutely notorious for leaving crumbs of itself all over your storage devices.

[Art99]

To put it simply, It’s very challenging to get to the upper echelon.

[daves]

Perfect Team is a quick and easy way to play online against others without the demanding schedule of other online leagues. One week is quick compared to the length of online leagues.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

This is "basically" what PT is... collect the best cards you can and play games agaisnt others who have done the same thing. Add in a number of different ways to get better cards, including buying them, and you also turn a profit for the developers.

That's almost exclusively what it is. It takes time to learn to learn the tactics that are effective, and when and what to tweak for each player but once done, it's more or less done. It's unfortunate those tactics have little to do with actual baseball.

This year will be my last mainly because I no longer enjoy the collecting element; it's just become a drag. There are far too many cards, and the disparity in historics with the same 'value' drives me up the wall as so few are actually playable, and it would be a lot more fun if I could actually play who I want to play and still compete.

Above all, though - and I accept this is largely a personal thing - I'm bored with collecting because the cards themselves are so boring. I'm sick of the generic art, and the publishers need to stop messing about, sort out any rights issues and GET PICTURES OF THE PLAYERS on the cards. Give the cards a 'back' with a brief bio and career stats. Make them at least worth a look before trading them away. Make the card gallery a screen I actually use.

To end on a positive, I have enjoyed the tourneys a lot this year. Assembling those teams is the funnest part of the game for me, and is the only part that offers a real choice of players and viable tactics, particularly when value capped.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by Hertston

Above all, though - and I accept this is largely a personal thing - I'm bored with collecting because the cards themselves are so boring. I'm sick of the generic art, and the publishers need to stop messing about, sort out any rights issues and GET PICTURES OF THE PLAYERS on the cards. Give the cards a 'back' with a brief bio and career stats. Make them at least worth a look before trading them away. Make the card gallery a screen I actually use.

Check out the Conlon / Megacards collection printed back in the early 90's - you would love them. I have a complete set minus ONE card.

[jd200600]

I think that the chase of the "card" is the main draw. Obviously, collecting is a fun way to play the game that does not involve a ton of time like I sink into the Franchise that I run each year. Strategizing and collecting may be a better way to sum it up.

The issue that I run into is that I am not going to sink 1000s of dollars into the game, and I do not have time to spam tourneys all day long. This really takes some of the fun out of it. That fact added with when you figure out the strategy, it just becomes a game of obtaining the right cards. I hit a wall this year, which stinks, but in OOTP23 I am just going to focus on using what I have and not sinking too much time into the mode. It is a good time killer during my lunches!

[HRBaker]

I'm VERY likely to run only one team this year and I'm planning on posting a thread of when and how I improve the roster. If nothing else, it should generate some discussion with some folks disagreeing with my logic, lol. No money, no tournament teams - simply packs and/or missions and the occasional card pack. If the OL league forms again, I'll restrict the team to meet their rules.


I'm going to spend a lot more of my time back in the Classic game.

[PocketsAintFull]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

Check out the Conlon / Megacards collection printed back in the early 90's - you would love them. I have a complete set minus ONE card.

I have a small amount of the Conlon cards and they are fantastic with the old images and information on the back

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by jd200600

The issue that I run into is that I am not going to sink 1000s of dollars into the game, and I do not have time to spam tourneys all day long.

You don't really have to. I suppose by the numbers it's best to have three tourneys running at all times, but this year I switched mainly to daily stuff pretty quickly. You can do that with a reasonable return even early on in the capped tourneys.