Creating a fictional league with all young players?

voxpoptart · 03-27-2015, 10:30 PM

What's the best way to create a new fictional major league with all young players, so I could watch everyone age without wondering "What were they doing before they were 34 in year one"? I remember from OOTP13 that simply setting a maximum age at player creation was a bad idea: in my experience it warped everyone's development curves and had players developing/ peaking much earlier than in real life.

Would I have better results with that in OOTP16, or could there be some way of starting by simulating a few years of college and independent minor leagues before adding major leagues, perhaps? Or what would you suggest? Thanks!

The Game · 03-28-2015, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by voxpoptart

What's the best way to create a new fictional major league with all young players, so I could watch everyone age without wondering "What were they doing before they were 34 in year one"? I remember from OOTP13 that simply setting a maximum age at player creation was a bad idea: in my experience it warped everyone's development curves and had players developing/ peaking much earlier than in real life.

Would I have better results with that in OOTP16, or could there be some way of starting by simulating a few years of college and independent minor leagues before adding major leagues, perhaps? Or what would you suggest? Thanks!

The way I would attempt to do it is mass delete any player over a certain age and use the create fictional player and set the parameters you want and then either have them in an inaugural draft or let the AI sign who they want.

voxpoptart · 03-28-2015, 08:38 AM

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't want to individually create any players -- let alone hundreds. Unless you're saying there's a mass player-creation function now? In which case, how does that work?

Barkingturtle · 03-28-2015, 09:06 AM

I do this, although your mileage may vary.

At inception, I set my majors to create players between 20 and 25.

I play with AAA and Rookie leagues only, I set them to generate players from 20-25 and 18-22, respectively. I also play with college and high school feeders and I disable automatic free agent generation.

It works out fine for me. I don't get any players early on dominating at age 38 before retiring a year later and leaving me to wonder: what if? Be mindful of teams' finances during the first few years, as having so many young guys can result in many players hitting arbitration and free agency at the same time. What I do is erase everyone's service time after the inaugural draft. Then I sim forward till the first free agent class hits. For me, this is five years, default MLB would be six. For this initial sim, I allow teams to spend their entire revenues rather than having the owner set a budget. Sometimes I need to increase revenue a little, too. After the first wave of free agents has come home to roost, I let the owners start setting budgets, and over the next couple of seasons things normalize. I'm 17 or 18 seasons into a game I just began this way with OOTP16 and it is great.

Best of luck!

voxpoptart · 03-28-2015, 09:18 AM

Barkingturtle: sounds promising! What do you do with the age limits after the initial player creation process? In OOTP13 -- and again, things might be much improved now -- when I got rid of the age limits, I promptly was handed a June draft in which many of the players were in their 30s. Or does having the HS and College leagues prevent it from doing that?

Also, do you add more minor leagues later, or stick permanently with just AAA and Rookie?

Barkingturtle · 03-28-2015, 09:29 AM

I get rid of the age limits right after the game's inception, although I don't think it does anything in my case, because I only have players come into the league through my feeders and international discoveries. All the new blood is 22 and under.

I will eventually add AA and single A leagues, but first I grow the feeders over time till my free agent pools can tolerate the extra levels. My goal is to never need to force generate new players after the game's creation, largely because I play stats-only so players need a history, but I also don't want thousands of dudes in my free agent pool. It's a balancing act and it takes a bit of tinkering, but it can be done.

voxpoptart · 03-28-2015, 06:49 PM

That sounds very cool. One additional question, which you (Barkingturtle) might not know the answer to but someone might: would it be possible to borrow your model, but start without a Major League and then add it after a year or two?

If not, that's okay: I'll use your setup as described.

But if so, how would one do that?

The Game · 03-30-2015, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by voxpoptart

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't want to individually create any players -- let alone hundreds. Unless you're saying there's a mass player-creation function now? In which case, how does that work?

There is a mass create player option has been since at least 15. You can set it for positions - random, nationality - random etc.

03-27-2015, 10:30 PM	#1
voxpoptart Major Leagues Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 387	Creating a fictional league with all young players? What's the best way to create a new fictional major league with all young players, so I could watch everyone age without wondering "What were they doing before they were 34 in year one"? I remember from OOTP13 that simply setting a maximum age at player creation was a bad idea: in my experience it warped everyone's development curves and had players developing/ peaking much earlier than in real life. Would I have better results with that in OOTP16, or could there be some way of starting by simulating a few years of college and independent minor leagues before adding major leagues, perhaps? Or what would you suggest? Thanks! Last edited by voxpoptart; 03-27-2015 at 11:06 PM.

03-28-2015, 08:38 AM	#3
voxpoptart Major Leagues Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 387	Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't want to individually create any players -- let alone hundreds. Unless you're saying there's a mass player-creation function now? In which case, how does that work?

03-28-2015, 09:06 AM	#4
Barkingturtle Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 99	I do this, although your mileage may vary. At inception, I set my majors to create players between 20 and 25. I play with AAA and Rookie leagues only, I set them to generate players from 20-25 and 18-22, respectively. I also play with college and high school feeders and I disable automatic free agent generation. It works out fine for me. I don't get any players early on dominating at age 38 before retiring a year later and leaving me to wonder: what if? Be mindful of teams' finances during the first few years, as having so many young guys can result in many players hitting arbitration and free agency at the same time. What I do is erase everyone's service time after the inaugural draft. Then I sim forward till the first free agent class hits. For me, this is five years, default MLB would be six. For this initial sim, I allow teams to spend their entire revenues rather than having the owner set a budget. Sometimes I need to increase revenue a little, too. After the first wave of free agents has come home to roost, I let the owners start setting budgets, and over the next couple of seasons things normalize. I'm 17 or 18 seasons into a game I just began this way with OOTP16 and it is great. Best of luck!

03-28-2015, 09:18 AM	#5
voxpoptart Major Leagues Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 387	Barkingturtle: sounds promising! What do you do with the age limits after the initial player creation process? In OOTP13 -- and again, things might be much improved now -- when I got rid of the age limits, I promptly was handed a June draft in which many of the players were in their 30s. Or does having the HS and College leagues prevent it from doing that? Also, do you add more minor leagues later, or stick permanently with just AAA and Rookie?

03-28-2015, 09:29 AM	#6
Barkingturtle Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 99	I get rid of the age limits right after the game's inception, although I don't think it does anything in my case, because I only have players come into the league through my feeders and international discoveries. All the new blood is 22 and under. I will eventually add AA and single A leagues, but first I grow the feeders over time till my free agent pools can tolerate the extra levels. My goal is to never need to force generate new players after the game's creation, largely because I play stats-only so players need a history, but I also don't want thousands of dudes in my free agent pool. It's a balancing act and it takes a bit of tinkering, but it can be done.

03-28-2015, 06:49 PM	#7
voxpoptart Major Leagues Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 387	That sounds very cool. One additional question, which you (Barkingturtle) might not know the answer to but someone might: would it be possible to borrow your model, but start without a Major League and then add it after a year or two? If not, that's okay: I'll use your setup as described. But if so, how would one do that?