Feedback Needed / OOTP 11 Features

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

The problem here is you are fusing the GM and coach into one role. This game should gear towards a GM. That's why I think ticket prices should be out, and owners should be in. The game should gear itself towards features that are part of a club's "Baseball Operations". That was why I was sort of disappointed to see the over simplification of the scouting system in OOTP 8. Rehab assignments would be an example of this. I have always said that OOTP's biggest problem is that it attempts to be all things to all people. In doing this, the detail level for a person who just wants to play as a GM has suffered. People will criticize me and say "but I don't just want to play as a GM", but that is what the initial intention of this game really was...

Why is it a problem? Why should it gear in one direction?

Your wants for this game are, according to this thread, not the same as most of those playing the game............and how do you know what the 'initial intention' was and can't that direction change over time.

I see nothing wrong with what battists suggested. In fact, I'd love that in the game.

FM, for all the good it is, in reality is a bloated game with mundane tasks that bog you down as a user. I'd love to play that game (big football fan), but it wastes my time with ignorant tasks and makes the actual football part of it not worth the work to me.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

Why is it a problem? Why should it gear in one direction?

Your wants for this game are, according to this thread, not the same as most of those playing the game............and how do you know what the 'initial intention' was and can't that direction change over time.

I see nothing wrong with what battists suggested. In fact, I'd love that in the game.

FM, for all the good it is, in reality is a bloated game with mundane tasks that bog you down as a user. I'd love to play that game (big football fan), but it wastes my time with ignorant tasks and makes the actual football part of it not worth the work to me.

I actually like his suggestions with the exception of the recommending the benching of a player, because that is something a Manager does, not a GM.

[Killing Time]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

I've played CM/FM since CM 97/98, and I can definitely see how OOTP could become more like Football Manager. But I believe this would be a disaster. OOTP has already been down that road when it was part of SI, and we saw the game take on entirely new code and a slew of new features that did not work well.

Some will surely disagree, but I think OOTP deviated from the ideal path for its target market, and I think it suffered accordingly.

The baseball sim market goes back decades to the dice and card games, long before there were computer simulations. The entire point of baseball simulations since day one has been to allow the human player to manage real life baseball players or more recently fictional players. Even with card and dice games, you could draft and trade players, form leagues with friends or relatives, and combine both the "front office" and "on the field" managerial elements. If it was strictly a GM simulation, it wouldn't really work, because the baseball sim audience expects more than that.

Few people want to be the GM and then let the AI manage the games. Yes, we do this in online leagues out of necessity, but that's where you could implement head-to-head Internet play and really get somewhere. I'm sure there are some people who like to build a team and just sim through the seasons with the computer handling the management, but I would bet that most OOTP customers prefer to manage the games for their teams.

Besides, in real life the GM has no real say in how the team will be managed on the field, other than the ability to hire and fire the manager. So even the current feature for allowing the GM to set all the in-game strategies is unrealistic. If you wanted a GM-only simulation, you'd have to eliminate that feature for realism's sake.

Given that baseball gaming is largely unique to the U.S. market in terms of overall sales and appeal, I don't think that a culture exists to embrace OOTP as a mostly front office managerial sim. Rather than including features like setting ticket prices, I think those features should be eliminated in favor of added focus on expanding the in-game features, personnel management, and historical play. Keep it to player personnel and on-field management only. In real life, there are other people in the front office who deal with setting ticket prices and managing the other finances.

What makes OOTP so unique is that it applies a "career-style" approach to the core baseball sim elements of drafting, trading, and managing games. By offering the Lahman database, it blows away other products like Strat-O-Matic and Diamond Mind, which are much better for single-season replays but require customers to spend their life savings on season disks and other utilities.

I think OOTP has struck a nice balance in many ways, but if it makes changes in the future, I don't want to see it try to become like Football Manager, as much as I love that game. I think the game would lose a lot of its appeal to those who are looking for those core, traditional elements.

Charlie gets it. Do you?

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Killing Time

Charlie gets it. Do you?

Then why the he'll are we hiring and firing managers within the game?

[Another Mike D]

As a feature, I'd love for the team to continue supporting the game even while they are working on a new version to get more money.

[Another Mike D]

Also, it would be cool if the 4th iteration of this game could get FA comp right. That would be awesome. So the guy who signs a type A MR on day 1 worth 5M doesn't get the first round pick over the type A OF who signs on the same team 2 days later for 50M.

[akw4572]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned or not, but do fatigue by innings, instead of games played. If a guy gets a day off, and he pinch hits, his % factor in the fatigue shouldn't go down more.

[sfeldkamp]

I really just want two things.

Enhanced AI, especially with regards to roster management, trades, etc...

And most importantly to me, more advanced stats, including defensive stats. Would love to see wOBA and WAR and such. Maybe the best thing would be some way to write functions to create your own stats, since new statistical models are being developed all the time.

[ELDoro]

Originally Posted by sfeldkamp

I really just want two things.

Enhanced AI, especially with regards to roster management, trades, etc...

And most importantly to me, more advanced stats, including defensive stats. Would love to see wOBA and WAR and such. Maybe the best thing would be some way to write functions to create your own stats, since new statistical models are being developed all the time.

writing your own stats would be great!

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Then why the he'll are we hiring and firing managers within the game?

Because it's fun?

[hfield007]

Something I have lobbied for two yeas now, a progressive list of year by year leaders at each stat.


Yearly League Leaders &amp Records for Runs Batted In - Baseball-Reference.com

If you don't know what I mean reference the link.

[GoCanes]

Sorry if this has already been said and I missed it, but I would like to have potentials for ALL game ratings,,,big example would be base stealing. If you do a historical league without recal, whatever rating(s) a player gets during his initial import is what he pretty much has for the rest of his career. This is not very realistic, as some guys don't steal much their 1st few years, but do later in their career, while others steal less as their careers go along.

Also would like a rating for players possibly learning new positions as their careers go along. For historical leagues, if a player plays the same position(s) throughout their career, their potentials in this would be very low, but someone like Craig Biggio who ended up being a full time starter at 3 very different positions through his career would have a very high rating. This could even be broken down via position, so Biggio would be imported as a catcher, but have high potentials ratings at 2B and CF and Ernie Banks would import as a SS with a high potential rating at 1B. This would be cool in ficitional leagues too, where a player comes in as say a SS with a high potential rating at CF. You already have a pretty good young SS, but your CF is in the last year(s) of his contract and is on the down side of his career with very little future talent in the farm system at CF. You can then have your SS with a high potential is CF either go down to the farm for a year or so to learn CF, or even play as your backup CF and SS splitting time with your current CF as a starter improving his ability at CF or even just put him in CF fulltime and he will improve as the season(s) go along, but you will have to suffer a little in the field while he learns the position (basically what Biggio did both times).

[GoCanes]

dola...I forgot one, have an option where you can have players import as hitters even if they started out as pitchers, but were hitters for a majoirty of their careers (Babe Ruth and Rick Ankiel as examples) and vise versa for players who started as hitters but became pitchers (Bob Lemon as an example). This would of course only be an option for if you are not using recal in an historical league and would be nice if this option could be turned of and on as the league goes along. Example if you have this option on Smokey Joe Wood would be an OF, but you can turn it off the season he imports if you want him to be a pitcher and then turn it back on when Babe Ruth imports and he can start out as an OF.

[md5423]

its probably too late now but, the ability to teach a player a new position etc. and the ability to teach a pitcher new pitches would be awesome!

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by md5423

its probably too late now but, the ability to teach a player a new position etc. and the ability to teach a pitcher new pitches would be awesome!

The ability to teach a player a new position has been in OOTP for as far back as I can remember. If you want to teach him a new position, do it while he's working his way up through the minors. Keep in mind, some players just will not be able to learn a new position, much like real life.

The ability to teach new pitches is something that will hopefully be put in OOTP in the near future.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by BruceM

The ability to teach new pitches is something that will hopefully be put in OOTP in the near future.

...which was amazingly and inexplicably left out when the pitching system was modified.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by md5423

its probably too late now but, the ability to teach a player a new position etc. and the ability to teach a pitcher new pitches would be awesome!

There is a real-world consequence of that.

When a MLB club is converting a pitcher into a position player, or a position player into a pitcher, that player gets an extra year of eligibility to play at a given minor league classification (but he can only play in his new role).

That means, for example, if the service limit in a minor league is five years of prior service, and the player just over five prior seasons, he normally wouldn't be able to play in that league. But because he is being converted into a different role, he would be allowed to play one season in that league.

[Cryomaniac]

On that subject, pitchers that are converted to hitters should actually develop at hitting.

[Northernsky]

The ability to have a select all or a shift select option so you don't have to remove players one by one from minor leagues or whatever the case my be.

[TGH-Adfabre]

Originally Posted by Scott Gustafson

The ability to have a select all or a shift select option so you don't have to remove players one by one from minor leagues or whatever the case my be.

You, me, Curtis and a small army.