Team Finances Possible Bug (x-post)

[almoney]

I posted this http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=147007 and someone recommended also posting the problem here.

So I started a season with the KC Royals using updated rosters. I was like 73-89 my first year because I traded away a bunch of contracts, etc.

So I finished up my first year and go to the offseason. The front office screen says I have $22.5 million available for player and staff signings, and my current player payroll is only $31.5 million.

Now I can't even sign a $700k player to a one year deal. It says "You have $22.5 million available for players signings, the owner does NOT approve of this deal."

WTF? Anything I can do about this? Bleh.

Not really sure if this is a bug or if the owner is being a cheap skate but I figured I'd post it here.

[f.montoya]

I think you have a penny pinching owner. Go into Game setup/League Setup/Rules. There, find "Team owner controls budget" and change it to "No".

[Curtis]

Fidel, I'm probably wrong about this, doesn't whether or not the owner is a cheapskate affect the size of the budget, rather than whether he'll okay a transaction that should be under budget? Is there anyone you could check with on that? (Not neccessary if you're confident your original answer was correct, of course.)

[briantheiceberg]

I'm getting the same error for online leagues where the owner is set to "no"

[Nutlaw]

The full version of patch #2 was released a couple of days back. Can you try downloading that and let us know if your problem repeats itself?

[robster1225]

Another thing to consider is if you have a lot of player's up for Arbitration in the next season. If that's the case, I believe that lowers the ammount of money available for player signings. If I'm wrong, I hope somebody corrects me.

[Killebrew]

Originally Posted by briantheiceberg

I'm getting the same error for online leagues where the owner is set to "no"

Same here and I'm using the latest 2.0.2 patch, this is definitely a current game finance bug. This bug is probably more obvious when a league uses a payroll cap, as often teams cannot offer any extensions at all even when they will be 50 mil below the cap the next season. Since the game displays the owner approval whether or not this 'owner controls finances' is set to 'no' I'm wondering if this is actually two finance bugs here (1. 'Available money' for contract extensions calculation is incorrect, 2. 'Owner controls finances' setting may not work as it should).

To clarify, here's my description of what I believe is the finance bug posted above:
The money available for contract extensions is inaccurate. How off it is appears to be related to what the teams current payroll is, but for contract extensions current payroll should not have any impact, next years payroll is the key number here. I'm sure this is a PITA to test with arbitration turned on, but our online league does not use arbitration so that modifier should have no impact on this issue.

A temporary (I hope) manual workaround for online leagues, especially ones that use payroll caps:
Calculate the real available extension contract money by going to each teams 'reports' tab and select 'player salaries' from the top right drop down menu and note the total of next years contracts. Repeat this process for all minor league affiliates by staying on this screen and selecting each minor league affiliate from the bottom right 'drop up' menu (this is in case the teams minors league affiliates have players with contracts next year). Add up the totals to get the dollar amount already used up for next year, then do additional calculations to determine the correct amount available for extensions (taking into consideration any unique finance rules your leagues uses). If you have a cash max, allow profit sharing, and use minimal finance rules (EG: No arbitration, equal media contracts) then this process is time consuming but pretty easy.

Anyway, Commishes can over-ride the games contract offer restrictions and can submit the extension offers for their owners in cases where this game bug prevents their owners from submitting legit extension offers. Owners can post their offers in a forum or email them to the Commish.

Obviously this is an arduous process to do manually, so I really hope this issue gets flagged for ASAP attention in the next patch. If OOTP staff need further descriptions/examples of the issue or screenshots let me know. In the CDL this issue impacts every team.

[Nutlaw]

Previously TT'ed as 3612. I'll add this thread to the list.