Developer Question: Fan Interest, Fan Loyalty, and Market Size Values

[futuremarlinsgm]

Good morning all! Welcome all feedback on these questions but would like to get possible developer input.

1) How are the initial values for Fan Interest, Fan Loyalty, and Market Size determined in OOTP?

2) Other than relocation, what ways are there for teams to increase their Market Size and Fan Loyalty in OOTP? I noticed that Fan Loyalty will increase if teams help players develop charity organizations.

Thank you for the input and feedback in advance.

[joefromchicago]

(1) I believe it's entirely random. The game doesn't know, for instance, that New York City is bigger than Bugtussle, TN.

(2) The best way to increase fan interest and market size is to win games.

[md40022]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

(1) I believe it's entirely random. The game doesn't know, for instance, that New York City is bigger than Bugtussle, TN.

(2) The best way to increase fan interest and market size is to win games.

I agree with #2 completely, but I'm not sure I agree with #1.

Setting NY, Chi, LA, etc. as big markets with high fan interest, while setting the opposite for Oak, Tampa, etc. would seem to be awfully easy to do on the developers end at the very start of the sim and then like you said in point #2, winning (or losing) would dictate how that changed as a sim progressed.

I'm a person who really only runs 1 single sim per OOTP version so I haven't done anywhere near the testing that others might have on this, but as I always play with the Cubs and always have big market and big fan interest my assumption was this was not random. My assumption is day 1 of your sim would reflect real life with those type of things and then winning / losing as the years progressed would dictate the direction that things moved ---- but maybe I'm wrong. I dont know.

[Brad K]

Completely random doesn't fly. In 1960 the Pirates had the third highest attendance in MLB. If a save is started in 1961 they are near the top in market size, budget, and payroll due to what happened RL in 1960.

[Rain King]

If you are talking fictional, the Market Sizes are based on the initial budget. Fan Size and Loyalty I'm not as sure, but I believe are still at least somewhat tied to the initial Market Size.

So, if you have an initial draft you can affect this by adjusting the draft budgets. Otherwise, I believe it essentially gets determined based on the overall salaries of the players that the team ends up with. Essentially, the process seems to be that the players are created and end up on a team, they are given a salary (based on their abilities and years of service) and the game then makes sure the team has the financials to handle the salaries they start with.

For the "real" 2024 rosters these things are manually set by the roster team.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Rain King

If you are talking fictional, the Market Sizes are based on the initial budget. Fan Size and Loyalty I'm not as sure, but I believe are still at least somewhat tied to the initial Market Size.

Well, yes, here we go with OOTP being two separate games. As such people assume the question relates to how they play and answer accordingly. That's what I did.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Well, yes, here we go with OOTP being two separate games.

I've never understood this line of thinking. OOTP is just a single game. The main thing historical changes is it imports settings at the end of the year to bring the league back into line with history. Nothing else about the game plays out different.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

I've never understood this line of thinking. OOTP is just a single game. The main thing historical changes is it imports settings at the end of the year to bring the league back into line with history. Nothing else about the game plays out different.

Yet when we have discussions the answers are different depending on whether a person is playing historical or fictional. This thread is an example.