High Quality Fictional Fill Ins

majesty95 · 05-11-2014, 03:20 AM

In my 1993 replay I chose to block fictional players from making the majors. However, this apparently allowed the game to create a TON of high level prospects. If you are blocking them form making the Major League would it not make sense to not have them be of high quality? Shouldn't they essentially be "ghost" players just with names?

This is creating an issue because teams are looking at these players and building their teams under the assumption that these minor leaguers are going to be able to help them. I've even seen a Major League team down to six (6!) pitchers on their ML roster. I'm guessing this is because they had no more actual major leaguers and could not call up any of their fictional guys.

Its certainly not giving me the desired intent and negatively impacting my league. What are my options? If I choose now to enable ghost players then it will also uncheck the ability to block fictionals from making the majors. I can;t believe this isn't something others have run into before. Quite surprising considering this feature has been around as long as it has...

majesty95 · 05-11-2014, 01:05 PM

Any thoughts or proposed remedies?

SteveP · 05-11-2014, 05:07 PM

It can take some planning and tactical thinking when you add fictional players to a historical league. The game uses the same formulas for fictional player creation whether you are playing an historical league or a fictional league.So it isn't surprising that some fictional players created at the AAA level would be suitable for advancement to The Show -- unless you adjust the Player Creation Modifiers for that league downward to ensure these fictional players are low quality.

Keep in mind that, if you block the fictional players from advancing, major league teams may run into trouble with their rosters (after all, teams in your league may experience wildly different injury situations than they did in real life). You just have to decide how you want to fix this problem when it arises.

It doesn't make sense to have (IMO) ghosts players turned on, and have fictional players in your league. If you don't create fictional players, you don't have to worry about blocking them. If you have ghost players, they won't advance. So, you have to decide on one or the other: fictional players or ghost players.

Hope that helps.

majesty95 · 05-11-2014, 05:21 PM

The problem that I am in now is that I have a ton of fictional players and I can't go back to ghost players without allowing the fictional players to go to the Majors. I edited the new crop of free agents so that none are better than 2 star potential but dealing with the existing "prospects" presents the greatest challenge...

Sludge · 05-12-2014, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by majesty95

The problem that I am in now is that I have a ton of fictional players and I can't go back to ghost players without allowing the fictional players to go to the Majors. I edited the new crop of free agents so that none are better than 2 star potential but dealing with the existing "prospects" presents the greatest challenge...

Why don't you "retire" the players you don't want?

Sludge

majesty95 · 05-12-2014, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sludge

Why don't you "retire" the players you don't want?

Sludge

Read "ton" as in hundreds.

SteveP · 05-12-2014, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by majesty95

The problem that I am in now is that I have a ton of fictional players and I can't go back to ghost players without allowing the fictional players to go to the Majors. I edited the new crop of free agents so that none are better than 2 star potential but dealing with the existing "prospects" presents the greatest challenge...

A lot depends on how "purist" you are about who plays at the major league level. My approach in the past was to recognize that many of the historical players at that level were of no consequence to the game, and could easily have never made it out of the minors -- whereas other players who never made it out of the minors could have played at the major league level, given a little luck. As far as the the OOTP data base is concerned, the latter are no different that the fictional players in your league.

So, you have two choices:

1. Allow fictional players to advance, but weed out only the ones that look to become significant players in the league, to the detriment of the more significant historical players. There won't be all that many of those and so this is pretty easy to do.

2. Routinely -- once a game season or even once a game month -- go thru your league and weed out any fictionals on the 40-man roster of each team. A bit more work, but not all that time consuming.

With either option, you may want to weed out fictionals from the free agency list to whatever extent makes you comfortable with the results.

I have generally done #1 myself.

majesty95 · 05-12-2014, 01:43 PM

Thanks steve. The idea that they could have possibly made it with a little luck makes sense. I've given career ending injuries to several of the top prospects and significantly altered the potential of others. I've also adjust the creation modifiers (10% less on all) to hopefully alleviate it some going forward. Since I have a storyline and some of them were included in trades I haven't wanted to just delete them. However, the raises another question. Could we not also be given the ability to block fictional players from being traded? Again, depends on the purist in you. If I had it to do over though I would probably just use ghost players...

05-11-2014, 01:05 PM	#2
majesty95 All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 1,789	Any thoughts or proposed remedies? __________________ College Football Sim League

05-11-2014, 05:21 PM	#4
majesty95 All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 1,789	The problem that I am in now is that I have a ton of fictional players and I can't go back to ghost players without allowing the fictional players to go to the Majors. I edited the new crop of free agents so that none are better than 2 star potential but dealing with the existing "prospects" presents the greatest challenge... __________________ College Football Sim League

05-12-2014, 01:43 PM	#8
majesty95 All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 1,789	Thanks steve. The idea that they could have possibly made it with a little luck makes sense. I've given career ending injuries to several of the top prospects and significantly altered the potential of others. I've also adjust the creation modifiers (10% less on all) to hopefully alleviate it some going forward. Since I have a storyline and some of them were included in trades I haven't wanted to just delete them. However, the raises another question. Could we not also be given the ability to block fictional players from being traded? Again, depends on the purist in you. If I had it to do over though I would probably just use ghost players... __________________ College Football Sim League

05-11-2014, 03:20 AM	#1
majesty95 All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 1,789	High Quality Fictional Fill Ins In my 1993 replay I chose to block fictional players from making the majors. However, this apparently allowed the game to create a TON of high level prospects. If you are blocking them form making the Major League would it not make sense to not have them be of high quality? Shouldn't they essentially be "ghost" players just with names? This is creating an issue because teams are looking at these players and building their teams under the assumption that these minor leaguers are going to be able to help them. I've even seen a Major League team down to six (6!) pitchers on their ML roster. I'm guessing this is because they had no more actual major leaguers and could not call up any of their fictional guys. Its certainly not giving me the desired intent and negatively impacting my league. What are my options? If I choose now to enable ghost players then it will also uncheck the ability to block fictionals from making the majors. I can;t believe this isn't something others have run into before. Quite surprising considering this feature has been around as long as it has... __________________ College Football Sim League

05-11-2014, 05:07 PM	#3
SteveP Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,109	It can take some planning and tactical thinking when you add fictional players to a historical league. The game uses the same formulas for fictional player creation whether you are playing an historical league or a fictional league.So it isn't surprising that some fictional players created at the AAA level would be suitable for advancement to The Show -- unless you adjust the Player Creation Modifiers for that league downward to ensure these fictional players are low quality. Keep in mind that, if you block the fictional players from advancing, major league teams may run into trouble with their rosters (after all, teams in your league may experience wildly different injury situations than they did in real life). You just have to decide how you want to fix this problem when it arises. It doesn't make sense to have (IMO) ghosts players turned on, and have fictional players in your league. If you don't create fictional players, you don't have to worry about blocking them. If you have ghost players, they won't advance. So, you have to decide on one or the other: fictional players or ghost players. Hope that helps.