Suggestions for Increasing Immersion

Goldash · 03-26-2011, 11:34 AM

Hello, everyone. Long-time forum lurker and OOTP addict but first-time poster. I've been playing the series since OOTP4 and haven't looked back since. And with that being said, I'm glad to be here!

There are a few minor features I'd like to see in future OOTP titles. Not necessarily for 12 per se, but some general things I'd like to see in future games. Here goes...

Team tracking for all staff / personnel
I understand not tracking win-loss records for non-managerial positions, but a kind of "employment history" feature would be nice. I had to resort to external Word documents in order to track the employment of my fictional league's general managers. While this isn't necessarily a big gripe, some kind of tracking feature similar to that of managers, minus win-loss records of course, would work. Finally, if a coach wins a championship as a member of the support staff (bench coach, hitting coach, et cetera), it should be tracked.

"Executive of the Year" Awards for General Managers
This is a bit of a no-brainer for future editions, although it may be a pain to code. A GM who dramatically changes the personnel of his team is just as important as the manager who wins games. Maybe this award could be triggered by a "cost per win" formula. The Manager of the Year awards are realistic enough (especially after a successful rebound from a bad year), so some variation to that extent would work here as well.

Number Retirement
I may be the millionth person to mention this idea on the forums, but jersey retirement would definitely up the already-insane immersion factor. NHL Eastside Hockey Manager once offered this feature (though it was automatic, based on career stats) and it really added to the vast universe that game created. For fictional leagues and future scenarios, it would definitely add some realism and history to what the game already features.

"All-Season" Teams
Sure, the All Star Game is a fine mid-season showcase of your league's best players, but seeing First Team, Second Team and All-Rookie Team selections at the end of the year would also be a good way to gauge league-wide talent year-by-year.

"Personnel History" on Team History Menu
A menu with a team's managerial (or staff) hirings in the "Team History" submenu would be a quick and easy way to look over a team's success with a specific manager. I often lose track of one specific team's past managers, even while using a shortlist. This would help an awful lot, however minor. Tables similar to the "History > Managers" submenu (but on the micro scale) would also work well.

Olympic / International Competition
International teams that function as all-star teams could be an interesting option for an Olympic or WBC-styled tournament, if the user desires. "Loaning" players for international competition would be tricky to code, but it would certainly make things interesting. I don't know how logical it would be to create a separate international league for a 20+ game competition that happens every 1-4 years and doesn't "own" its players, but it would certainly be an interesting idea.

Greater Team/Game Emphasis in News Reports
Maybe it's just me, but it seems as if much of the news is very individualistic. Multiple hits, homers and milestones are fine, but what about dramatic come-from-behind victories or hilariously long 18-inning "doubleheaders"? What about the misfortune of a team's tenth straight loss or the jubilation of its fifteenth straight victory? Dramatic stories like a team's third straight division title or tenth straight non-playoff year would certainly make for a new experience on the news menu. Incidents like these often make for compelling news on television. Why not in OOTP?

Record Breakers in the News
Granted, for fictional leagues, this should occur 20-30 years after establishment. But hearing that Joe Jones is closing in on the all-time home run title in 2054 would mean much more than writing custom stories or having it mentioned during a game and nowhere else. (Forgive me if this is already included in OOTP11. I've only played close to thirty seasons in my fictional universe and records are still breaking at a seemingly rapid pace).

Coaches / GMs in the Hall of Fame
A separate "staff" menu in the Hall of Fame screen would help set elected personnel from their in-game counterparts. Could present difficulty when inducting a hall-of-fame player as a GM or coach, however.

Base Coaches
I'm not as enthusiastic about this idea as I am about the others, but it could add a bit of authenticity...at the risk of drastically increasing the amount of player personnel, of course. Meh, I guess.

-----
OOTP, IMHO, is the standard for immersive detail in sports gaming today, and OOTP 11 is no exception. Hopefully, future games will consider what I've suggested and expand on that immersiveness even further. However "fringe" these features may be, I and many others appreciate all of it. Detail like this helps every season and every playthough retain an element of uniqueness not seen in any other sports title.

EDIT: Apologies if this is somehow in the wrong forum...just noticed the "Suggestions" forum under the OOTP11 subheader. Rookie mistake. :P

Cryomaniac · 03-26-2011, 11:47 AM

Some nice ideas. I like the number retirement and "all season" ideas.

Antonin · 03-26-2011, 01:41 PM

I agree. Nice ideas.

I'm surprised that I like the idea of base coaches. It would be a nice way to keep some of your favorite players in the organization after they retire.

BigbyWolf · 03-26-2011, 02:00 PM

Having base coaches would give us another play by play angle too. If you had a man on 1st or 3rd, the play by play could talk about the coach and player going over their signals etc.

I like this idea a lot.

Chicagofan76 · 03-26-2011, 02:10 PM

Greats Ideas...not a fan of the All season team this isnt NBA...Real baseball no longer plays in the olympics so having a career play having olympics not a fan of either.

udbacker58 · 03-26-2011, 04:03 PM

I'm all for number retirement and record breakers in the news; with notes of both in the player histories as well.

GmOfTheYear · 03-26-2011, 06:14 PM

Look I know the real mlb draft isn't something many people in this world care about, however I know everyone here cares about it and I beseech markus to improve it. What i'm asking for has not been done but I know he can do it if I beseech him to do it. Create completely unique scouting reports for each prospect! Boom! with the scout leaving comments about the boom or bust factor.

Cryomaniac · 03-26-2011, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

Greats Ideas...not a fan of the All season team this isnt NBA...Real baseball no longer plays in the olympics so having a career play having olympics not a fan of either.

As one of the "re-instate baseball to the Olympics" crowd, I disagree on that, but it certainly isn't a priority.

Muzamba · 03-26-2011, 07:45 PM

I like the way you think, Goldash!

Pretty much every suggestion you made appears on my perennial OOTP wishlist. It's good to know there are others out there who believe these features would make fantastic additions to the game.

Markus? Are you getting all of this?

falkonisback · 03-26-2011, 09:39 PM

Lots of great suggestions. I'd love to see a news article when a player moves past a certain player on the all-time leader board. I.E. Barry Bonds has just moved past Hank Aaron on the all-time HR leaderboard with homer #756! That would be awesome!!!

Chicagofan76 · 03-27-2011, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

As one of the "re-instate baseball to the Olympics" crowd, I disagree on that, but it certainly isn't a priority.

Oh I am all for bringing baseball back to olympic play and adding football as well.

Eric · 03-27-2011, 12:30 AM

Increasing immersion? Two words.... 3D.

Austsaint · 03-27-2011, 09:39 AM

Great ideas, all ones that would make a great game even better

fantom1979 · 03-27-2011, 06:54 PM

I've been trying to get the game to recognize record breakers for a long time (since the 2006 conversion). Markus has seemed to be on board a couple of times, but the feature never made it into the game.

ZMan · 03-27-2011, 11:07 PM

Some excellent ideas, here.

And I'm particularly in favor of the "Greater Team/Game Emphasis in News Reports" being implemented -- could this perhaps even make it into OOTP12?

It seems like this would be among the easier things in the above list to implement (well, at least for the simpler scenarios). I'd suggest some story templates for remarkable, rare, or odd scenarios like...

* walk-off HR to win a game (I actually track these in my own seasons but wish these were regularly covered either in the news or a report)
* odd walk-off scenarios: a bases-loaded HBP or walk, or a wild pitch or passed ball to end a game
* team comes back from an 7+ run deficit to win
* brief summaries for games ending after the 12th inning
* back-to-back-to-back (or more consecutive) home runs by a team in a game
* triple plays (I can't remember if these are always regularly covered by the news)
* a HR in a player's first career at-bat
* tracking significant winning streaks for a team (9+ wins in a row?), as well as home or road winning streaks
* noting when teams have broken a significant playoff drought (10+ years) or a significant championship drought

A few of these scenarios may or may not be covered already in OOTP 11 -- off the top of my head, I can't remember for certain. But I know that a number of these are not.

Cras · 03-28-2011, 01:00 AM

Exective of the Year would be very nice. I cannot stand how I win the Manger of the Year Award and my field manager continues to get the shaft. Both in the MoY award and in the team championships screen. And how my name shows up in the managerial leaderboard. Something that should have been fixed three versions ago is still in there.

Everything else, all sounds great to me. These would help indeed with the immersion factor, get the news to act a bit more like it is in Football Manager.

Curtis · 03-29-2011, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldash

Team tracking for all staff / personnel
I understand not tracking win-loss records for non-managerial positions, but a kind of "employment history" feature would be nice. I had to resort to external Word documents in order to track the employment of my fictional league's general managers. While this isn't necessarily a big gripe, some kind of tracking feature similar to that of managers, minus win-loss records of course, would work. Finally, if a coach wins a championship as a member of the support staff (bench coach, hitting coach, et cetera), it should be tracked.

"All-Season" Teams
Sure, the All Star Game is a fine mid-season showcase of your league's best players, but seeing First Team, Second Team and All-Rookie Team selections at the end of the year would also be a good way to gauge league-wide talent year-by-year.

Olympic / International Competition
International teams that function as all-star teams could be an interesting option for an Olympic or WBC-styled tournament, if the user desires. "Loaning" players for international competition would be tricky to code, but it would certainly make things interesting. I don't know how logical it would be to create a separate international league for a 20+ game competition that happens every 1-4 years and doesn't "own" its players, but it would certainly be an interesting idea.

Greater Team/Game Emphasis in News Reports

Record Breakers in the News

Team Tracking for All Staff/Personnel: Instead of pairing hitting and pitching coaches with won/loss records, you could pair them with adjusted OPS+ and adjusted ERA+.

Love the 'All Season Teams' idea. For those of us who play with one division, there are no all star teams or games, so I'd love the opportunity to be able to recognize the best players in the league at the end of the season. Yes, I know I can write an article. This is better.

'Olympic/International Competition': If we can't get national all star teams to play in Olympic or World Cup competitions, can we at least be allowed to pick teams to play teams from other leagues in the Asian Cup?

I like the idea of increased team news. Record breakers would be harder to implement in a non-irritating manner, but I'd like to see those, too.

In order to keep from being inundated with reports about players moving into the top ten all-time in stolen bases in the first month of your game, you might need to put some kind of restriction like this on it: No reports during the first season. In the second and third seasons, only reports on players becoming number one all time. In years four and five, only reports on players moving into the top two, etcetera, until in season twenty and later it would keep track of the top ten in each category.

Or whatever. But, I like these ideas, some of which I'd never seen before.

MizzouRah · 06-07-2011, 09:30 PM

When a big time first round draft pick makes his ML debut, that should be in the news.

LA just had a nasty injury to their #1 SP and pulled up a former #1 draft pick who is only 21 and was 10-5 this season in AAA. He's now their #5 and it would nice to be notified of this via national news story.

kehowey · 06-08-2011, 12:40 AM

I have been playing a solo fictional league in Finland. I'm currently playing the 2144 season. This may seem a bit morbid but no one was died. Markus Ackerstrom came over from Sweden and was the 21st pick overall in the inaugural draft. He never lived up to his potential and retired 2 years later. Markus is now 172 years old and has a overall and potential rating of 2 1/2 stars. Really. I have been managing since inception and I'm older than Markus and I feel it too. I'm wondering if I died in OOTP (like in a dream) would I die in real life too.

clwalcott · 06-08-2011, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldash

Greater Team/Game Emphasis in News Reports
Maybe it's just me, but it seems as if much of the news is very individualistic. Multiple hits, homers and milestones are fine, but what about dramatic come-from-behind victories or hilariously long 18-inning "doubleheaders"? What about the misfortune of a team's tenth straight loss or the jubilation of its fifteenth straight victory? Dramatic stories like a team's third straight division title or tenth straight non-playoff year would certainly make for a new experience on the news menu. Incidents like these often make for compelling news on television. Why not in OOTP?

Record Breakers in the News
Granted, for fictional leagues, this should occur 20-30 years after establishment. But hearing that Joe Jones is closing in on the all-time home run title in 2054 would mean much more than writing custom stories or having it mentioned during a game and nowhere else. (Forgive me if this is already included in OOTP11. I've only played close to thirty seasons in my fictional universe and records are still breaking at a seemingly rapid pace).

Only these two really interest me personally

03-26-2011, 11:47 AM	#2
Cryomaniac Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2007 Location: Hucknall, Notts, UK Posts: 4,902	Some nice ideas. I like the number retirement and "all season" ideas. __________________

03-26-2011, 01:41 PM	#3
Antonin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 2,536	I agree. Nice ideas. I'm surprised that I like the idea of base coaches. It would be a nice way to keep some of your favorite players in the organization after they retire. __________________ "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" - Johnny Rotten (Sex Pistols), San Francisco, 14 January 1978

03-26-2011, 04:03 PM	#6
udbacker58 All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 1,140	I'm all for number retirement and record breakers in the news; with notes of both in the player histories as well. __________________ Heartland Baseball League Commissioner Fictional - Stats Only - 30 years of History! HBL HOME PAGE \| HBL REPORTS HOME \| HBL UTILITIES HOME

03-26-2011, 07:45 PM	#9
Muzamba Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: St. Louis, MO Posts: 2,325	I like the way you think, Goldash! Pretty much every suggestion you made appears on my perennial OOTP wishlist. It's good to know there are others out there who believe these features would make fantastic additions to the game. Markus? Are you getting all of this? __________________ "It may be nothing. But it usually is always something and more than something." - Cardinals GM John Mozeliak

03-27-2011, 06:54 PM	#14
fantom1979 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Detroit, MI Posts: 3,498	I've been trying to get the game to recognize record breakers for a long time (since the 2006 conversion). Markus has seemed to be on board a couple of times, but the feature never made it into the game. __________________

03-26-2011, 11:34 AM	#1
Goldash Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 28	Suggestions for Increasing Immersion Hello, everyone. Long-time forum lurker and OOTP addict but first-time poster. I've been playing the series since OOTP4 and haven't looked back since. And with that being said, I'm glad to be here! There are a few minor features I'd like to see in future OOTP titles. Not necessarily for 12 per se, but some general things I'd like to see in future games. Here goes... Team tracking for all staff / personnel I understand not tracking win-loss records for non-managerial positions, but a kind of "employment history" feature would be nice. I had to resort to external Word documents in order to track the employment of my fictional league's general managers. While this isn't necessarily a big gripe, some kind of tracking feature similar to that of managers, minus win-loss records of course, would work. Finally, if a coach wins a championship as a member of the support staff (bench coach, hitting coach, et cetera), it should be tracked. "Executive of the Year" Awards for General Managers This is a bit of a no-brainer for future editions, although it may be a pain to code. A GM who dramatically changes the personnel of his team is just as important as the manager who wins games. Maybe this award could be triggered by a "cost per win" formula. The Manager of the Year awards are realistic enough (especially after a successful rebound from a bad year), so some variation to that extent would work here as well. Number Retirement I may be the millionth person to mention this idea on the forums, but jersey retirement would definitely up the already-insane immersion factor. NHL Eastside Hockey Manager once offered this feature (though it was automatic, based on career stats) and it really added to the vast universe that game created. For fictional leagues and future scenarios, it would definitely add some realism and history to what the game already features. "All-Season" Teams Sure, the All Star Game is a fine mid-season showcase of your league's best players, but seeing First Team, Second Team and All-Rookie Team selections at the end of the year would also be a good way to gauge league-wide talent year-by-year. "Personnel History" on Team History Menu A menu with a team's managerial (or staff) hirings in the "Team History" submenu would be a quick and easy way to look over a team's success with a specific manager. I often lose track of one specific team's past managers, even while using a shortlist. This would help an awful lot, however minor. Tables similar to the "History > Managers" submenu (but on the micro scale) would also work well. Olympic / International Competition International teams that function as all-star teams could be an interesting option for an Olympic or WBC-styled tournament, if the user desires. "Loaning" players for international competition would be tricky to code, but it would certainly make things interesting. I don't know how logical it would be to create a separate international league for a 20+ game competition that happens every 1-4 years and doesn't "own" its players, but it would certainly be an interesting idea. Greater Team/Game Emphasis in News Reports Maybe it's just me, but it seems as if much of the news is very individualistic. Multiple hits, homers and milestones are fine, but what about dramatic come-from-behind victories or hilariously long 18-inning "doubleheaders"? What about the misfortune of a team's tenth straight loss or the jubilation of its fifteenth straight victory? Dramatic stories like a team's third straight division title or tenth straight non-playoff year would certainly make for a new experience on the news menu. Incidents like these often make for compelling news on television. Why not in OOTP? Record Breakers in the News Granted, for fictional leagues, this should occur 20-30 years after establishment. But hearing that Joe Jones is closing in on the all-time home run title in 2054 would mean much more than writing custom stories or having it mentioned during a game and nowhere else. (Forgive me if this is already included in OOTP11. I've only played close to thirty seasons in my fictional universe and records are still breaking at a seemingly rapid pace). Coaches / GMs in the Hall of Fame A separate "staff" menu in the Hall of Fame screen would help set elected personnel from their in-game counterparts. Could present difficulty when inducting a hall-of-fame player as a GM or coach, however. Base Coaches I'm not as enthusiastic about this idea as I am about the others, but it could add a bit of authenticity...at the risk of drastically increasing the amount of player personnel, of course. Meh, I guess. ----- OOTP, IMHO, is the standard for immersive detail in sports gaming today, and OOTP 11 is no exception. Hopefully, future games will consider what I've suggested and expand on that immersiveness even further. However "fringe" these features may be, I and many others appreciate all of it. Detail like this helps every season and every playthough retain an element of uniqueness not seen in any other sports title. EDIT: Apologies if this is somehow in the wrong forum...just noticed the "Suggestions" forum under the OOTP11 subheader. Rookie mistake. :P Last edited by Goldash; 03-26-2011 at 11:55 AM.

03-26-2011, 02:00 PM	#4
BigbyWolf Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Kitchener, Ontario Posts: 113	Having base coaches would give us another play by play angle too. If you had a man on 1st or 3rd, the play by play could talk about the coach and player going over their signals etc. I like this idea a lot.

03-26-2011, 02:10 PM	#5
Chicagofan76 Banned Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Diamond, IL Posts: 6,339 Infractions: 2/2 (3)	Greats Ideas...not a fan of the All season team this isnt NBA...Real baseball no longer plays in the olympics so having a career play having olympics not a fan of either.

03-26-2011, 06:14 PM	#7
GmOfTheYear Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 402	Look I know the real mlb draft isn't something many people in this world care about, however I know everyone here cares about it and I beseech markus to improve it. What i'm asking for has not been done but I know he can do it if I beseech him to do it. Create completely unique scouting reports for each prospect! Boom! with the scout leaving comments about the boom or bust factor.

03-26-2011, 09:39 PM	#10
falkonisback All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Iberia, Louisiana Posts: 869	Lots of great suggestions. I'd love to see a news article when a player moves past a certain player on the all-time leader board. I.E. Barry Bonds has just moved past Hank Aaron on the all-time HR leaderboard with homer #756! That would be awesome!!!

03-27-2011, 12:30 AM	#12
Eric All Star Starter Join Date: May 2002 Location: Folsom, CA Posts: 1,234	Increasing immersion? Two words.... 3D.

03-27-2011, 09:39 AM	#13
Austsaint Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Jeju Do, South Korea Posts: 192	Great ideas, all ones that would make a great game even better

03-27-2011, 11:07 PM	#15
ZMan Minors (Double A) Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Brooklyn, NY Posts: 107	Some excellent ideas, here. And I'm particularly in favor of the "Greater Team/Game Emphasis in News Reports" being implemented -- could this perhaps even make it into OOTP12? It seems like this would be among the easier things in the above list to implement (well, at least for the simpler scenarios). I'd suggest some story templates for remarkable, rare, or odd scenarios like... * walk-off HR to win a game (I actually track these in my own seasons but wish these were regularly covered either in the news or a report) * odd walk-off scenarios: a bases-loaded HBP or walk, or a wild pitch or passed ball to end a game * team comes back from an 7+ run deficit to win * brief summaries for games ending after the 12th inning * back-to-back-to-back (or more consecutive) home runs by a team in a game * triple plays (I can't remember if these are always regularly covered by the news) * a HR in a player's first career at-bat * tracking significant winning streaks for a team (9+ wins in a row?), as well as home or road winning streaks * noting when teams have broken a significant playoff drought (10+ years) or a significant championship drought A few of these scenarios may or may not be covered already in OOTP 11 -- off the top of my head, I can't remember for certain. But I know that a number of these are not.

03-28-2011, 01:00 AM	#16
Cras Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: LEO Posts: 3,789	Exective of the Year would be very nice. I cannot stand how I win the Manger of the Year Award and my field manager continues to get the shaft. Both in the MoY award and in the team championships screen. And how my name shows up in the managerial leaderboard. Something that should have been fixed three versions ago is still in there. Everything else, all sounds great to me. These would help indeed with the immersion factor, get the news to act a bit more like it is in Football Manager. __________________ The Chicago White Sox 1906, 1917, 2005 World Series Champions 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919, 1959, 2005 American League Champions 2000, 2005, 2008 American League Central Division Champions 1983, 1993 American League West Division Champions OOTP \| Orbiter \| SSMS \| FSX \| LoL \| MLP:FIM!

06-07-2011, 09:30 PM	#18
MizzouRah Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Troy, Mo Posts: 6,252	When a big time first round draft pick makes his ML debut, that should be in the news. LA just had a nasty injury to their #1 SP and pulled up a former #1 draft pick who is only 21 and was 10-5 this season in AAA. He's now their #5 and it would nice to be notified of this via national news story.

06-08-2011, 12:40 AM	#19
kehowey Major Leagues Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: michigan Posts: 327	I have been playing a solo fictional league in Finland. I'm currently playing the 2144 season. This may seem a bit morbid but no one was died. Markus Ackerstrom came over from Sweden and was the 21st pick overall in the inaugural draft. He never lived up to his potential and retired 2 years later. Markus is now 172 years old and has a overall and potential rating of 2 1/2 stars. Really. I have been managing since inception and I'm older than Markus and I feel it too. I'm wondering if I died in OOTP (like in a dream) would I die in real life too.