OOTP 13 - Discussion of the new Features & Screenshots...

[jmknpk2]

Originally Posted by Spindel

Only $5 off preorder? If it was $10 I'd do it.

Hey, nothing personal against you Spindel. I understand that when money is tight, difficult decisions need to be made.

I am far from rich, but I have no problem shelling out whatever money Markus, Andreas and the other members of the team are asking. This excellent product is developed by a very small team. They put in a ton of hours.

The development of this product is obviously very important to them at a personal level. I guess what I mean is that they put their heart and soul into the project, in addition to their blood sweat and tears (not to mention the hours of overtime involved).

In contrast to the development teams of most games, whose primary goal is to complete the application, get paid, walk away and make dough, Markus and crew really care about the state and value of the product.

For starters, how many lead developers actually read the forums where users gripe, ask for the moon, and have beginner type questions and misunderstandings? Markus frequently responds directly and interacts with individual consumers on the forums about issues.

Not that any of that should really matter to us as consumers. We should buy the best product available on the market at the best price, regardless of whether it was developed by one man in his mom's basement or a mega billion dollar conglomerate.

It's because of the devotion of the development team and their goal of providing the highest quality product, that the game is what it is. Each year, immediately after release of the game, the team focuses on bug fixes. They immediately address issues that are typical following software releases. There is a flurry of bug fixes and patches that improve the product in a better than reasonable time frame. Those patches continue until most of the glaring and major bugs have been squashed.

There is also a movement and focus on assuring that everyone who purchase the game is actually able to use it successfully. Sometimes problems are extremely difficult to isolate, and identify the root cause, and determine a work-around. Fixes and solutions may not come as quickly as any of us would like. But I know OOTP Development stands by their product and tries to make sure the game operates as desired for each consumer. They make a better than normal effort to track down and resolve each individual problem a consumer has. I am pretty sure if they can't get the game working the way you need, they will gladly refund your money. But I think that only happens in extremely rare cases.

Once the product upgrade has been stabilized, and problems have been addressed, the team immediately gathers feedback and starts planning the improvements, new features, and addressing remaining inadequacy for the next version. The team gathers feedback directly from the users of the product. Real life gripes, issues, and wishes from real life users. The development team does not sit in their office, trying to imagine what the users of the game might like. They seek actual requests and find out what is most important from the perspective of the game player.

Then the cycle of improving an already excellent product begins. Before each version is released, it has already gone through a robust beta testing.

I don't know what more a person could ask of a development team. But the ultimate factor in a potential user's purchasing decision is already covered. This is the best product in its class, which is available at a very affordable price. This is a game playing system that is continually and actively improved.

When I add up the hours of enjoyment and excitement I get from this game, it is a an easy purchase decision for me. My money is spent on other products and services in my life that don't come anywhere near the satisfaction and fulfillment level that I receive from OOTP Baseball.

If money is so tight that the decision to enjoy hours, weeks, or months of enhancement to what might be one's favorite hobby, comes down to $5, then my heart goes out to you. I know some people aren't sports enthusiasts, not baseball fans, and don't have the yearning to act as owner/general-manager/on-field-manager and control the destiny of a baseball organization. If that's not your thing, then so be it. Spend your $5 on something more rewarding to you.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Ceej

I'm also heavily into historical play and would like to see inside-the-park home runs modeled accurately for the age of the dead ball and cavernous outfields. I guess that probably would require the park dimensions/fence heights to be more than just cosmetic, a development that would open up a lot of other neat things, but I guess you can't have everything...

Maybe a simple inside the park HR modifier could be added for deadball players? 1.000 would be standard default and the historical player could increase to his hearts content? FWIW I don't play historical and have no interest in deadball era so maybe I'm missing something?

Originally Posted by jmlima

I find this comment, which I've seen several times completely baffling.

So, OOTP wants to be a simulation, but yet, it fails to correctly simulate the crucial elements of the field where the game is played. It's almost as if it wanted to be a driving simulator and failed to take onto account road type and width.

Certainly this element should be much more immediate than the constant myriad of cosmetic improvements. Won't even go into historical leagues.

I don't know, other than inside the park HR in dead ball era I think OOTP does a good job of making each park different. But then you're not even going into historical leagues so I guess your beef is with all leagues?

Until there is a physics engine height and distance are non-factors and don't need to be in the game to simulate reality. The game isn't going to know if a ball clears the green monster or not because it was hit hard enough to go 500 feet but, unfortunately never got more than 25 feet off the ground, and it doesn't need to. Extra base hits and HR can be determined just fine "as is" in places like Fenway or San Diegos pitcher's heaven.

[simcrazy]

Originally Posted by clwalcott

In my experience, this is absolutely true and a problem. I regularly have 3 or 4 of the top five players in BB's.

The "fix" is not to use the take pitch feature at all, because otherwise you get a very large unfair advantage. It doesn't solve the issue where taking a pitch to let a runner steal has an inherent disadvantage to the hitter in real life, but the effect is felt the same by all teams at least, and isn't big enough to keep me up at night. Of course, this means I can't use the take pitch strategy which is a little disappointing, but not enough to keep the game from being awesome.

But maybe it was fixed for OOTP13, which is why I asked.

[cephasjames]

Is there any way possible to sneak in sub-folders in the Logos folder so that each universe can have its own folder?

[MizzouRah]

I'll ask my annual.. are sticky screens in this year?

I really wish screens would remember what settings I had clicked on, when I go to lineups and choose batters only, this season's stats, when I come back to that screen, it should remember. We need this for all screens, when I look at the waiver wire and choose all players, it shouldn't be on pitchers when I revisit the screen at a later date.

Thank you!

[clwalcott]

Originally Posted by simcrazy

The "fix" is not to use the take pitch feature at all, because otherwise you get a very large unfair advantage. It doesn't solve the issue where taking a pitch to let a runner steal has an inherent disadvantage to the hitter in real life, but the effect is felt the same by all teams at least, and isn't big enough to keep me up at night. Of course, this means I can't use the take pitch strategy which is a little disappointing, but not enough to keep the game from being awesome.

But maybe it was fixed for OOTP13, which is why I asked.

I use the same technique, just swing away at everything, but it does suck somewhat, maybe it has been addressed I dunno.

Also, ultimately, I would like the ability to call the pitchers game, electing what pitch is thrown. I know it won't be in this edition but would be great if it was ultimately done. I think it should be simulated pitch by pitch and not by at bat.

[simcrazy]

Originally Posted by clwalcott

I use the same technique, just swing away at everything, but it does suck somewhat, maybe it has been addressed I dunno.

Also, ultimately, I would like the ability to call the pitchers game, electing what pitch is thrown. I know it won't be in this edition but would be great if it was ultimately done. I think it should be simulated pitch by pitch and not by at bat.

I'll wait for Markus' response to my complete list, but I don't think we should get our hopes' up. It seems like it would be a pretty major change to how the game works.

[ootp11.5]

Im glad to hear that the PBP will be enhanced as well as the news section. I've noted in pervious postings that in a text heavy, stat heavy game that has little graphics, a rich PBP is very important to making the game enjoyable - so cant wait to see the improvements there. As far as the news enhancements, I found it a little odd that a guy in my Rookie league getting suspended for bumping an ump made the news but an ML team clinching its division did not. I also love the idea of guys who set single season or career records getting noted in the news as well. I hope the news items will include a game summary of the every playoff game too or championship series game. I go into the box scores now but it would be nice to just get a summary of Game1, Game2 etc etc of the world series and minor league championship games - I mean we are talking about the championship series.

I also hope in the Leauge Leaders screen for the minor leauges, my minor league players who are among the league leaders are highlighted like they are in the Major League level. Would be really nice (fingers crossed)

I dont know if I will preorder, but I will definitely pick it up when its completed and available for the masses. Im a bit of a novice when it comes to computers so I just hope transferring my current league to the OOTP13 version will be REALLY simple

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by jmlima

I find this comment, which I've seen several times completely baffling.

So, OOTP wants to be a simulation, but yet, it fails to correctly simulate the crucial elements of the field where the game is played. It's almost as if it wanted to be a driving simulator and failed to take onto account road type and width.

Certainly this element should be much more immediate than the constant myriad of cosmetic improvements. Won't even go into historical leagues.

It is not that it does not simulate the crucial elements of the field. These are just represented by the baseball world's park factors. So dimensions mean something since they are what drives HR vs. R and vs. L for instance, as well as BA and doubles and triples. It just does it in a way that does not use dimensions. So a 500 ft. CF fence that is 30 feet high does not directly go into the sim but the fact such a park has few home runs or lots of extra base hits does. Either way the field dimensions are captured in park factors. MMP is going to have very different double and triple ratings as well as HR ratings compared to say Shea regardless of what field dimensions you give it. The real life dimensions are what fuels the park factors. This might make making fictional parks tough but it does a decent to good job for historic parks where the park factors have all been researched and are in the era_parks file.

An example a short porch in LF does not get simulated by using the 380 ft of the LF fence with a 8 foot wall but it so up in HRs vs. R. The monster wall at Fenway isn't simulate through distance and height of the wall but by HR ratings. This does have some short comings in that maybe a player is an opposite field hitter but the vs. L rating is factored in if he bats left but that is a short coming of the accepted park factors used in baseball. The only way to make what you enter as park dimensions mean nothing only park factors but without a completely different model that simulates ball flight for each hit this is pretty impossible to do.

NB: I am only guessing an opposite field hitter who hits left uses the vs. left ratings. The formula may be more complex so that if the "roll" is an opposite filed hit it may use vs. R. I have no idea.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by jmlima

Absence of historicity in the relations between the majors and the minors.

Although, this would be nice it would be very hard to implement. Prior to the 1930's info is scarce at best on minor league teams. You also had a system that is much more analogous to FM than OOTP back in the indie minor days. FM has the same problem as OOTP does. In the US, MLS operates like other American sports as far as players are concerned. Free agency and trading is key. So the game is good at modern European football but difficult to sim as MLS. In OOTP, it is the opposite. Historically, player sales and reserve clause rights are key to the minors. The whole evolution of the minors was really about reserve clause rights. You would need a system that operates like FM prior to say the 1930's and like OOTP now beyond that.

That being said some major rewrites to minors like players belonging to the ML team and not the minor club would help so that players would be retained by the current team when you switch affiliations or delete a minor league rather than the team. Strangely this is the part that is very 19th and early 20th century minors. Now all players' contracts are owned by the ML club as opposed to the minor club as it was then.

I don't think it is workable to have historically accurate minor relations without 2 separate systems that can be turned on and off at the appropriate time. Prior to the modern system as we know it you need player sales, the ability to draft players from indie minor leagues, and maybe even loans similar to FM but these features need to switch off in the modern era when player sales, loans, buy-back clauses extra ended in real life. You would really need something like the FM and OOTP engines to co-exist and be able to turn off one system at any given time.

[mgom27]

Shared Minor League Teams? Sending Prospects Overseas that you Drafted from another country that aren't ready to sign with you.
Know I can do East Coast League/Central League and West League all in one Major League Setup.
Play by Play would like to see would like to see or hear Announcers.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Lollar9

Spindel, I know that it's your prerogative not to pre-order but please allow me to say this. With all the long days and nights Markus, Andreas, the rest of the development team and the beta team puts in to keep making this already awesome game even more addictive, don't you think that they are all worth the extra $5?

Well said. I'd also challenge anyone to tell me they get any better value out of any other $40 expenditure.

[Spindel]

Originally Posted by DCG12

The logic here is baffling. You won't pre-order to save $5 but chances are you will buy the game later at full price. Markus thanks you I'm sure.


Edit: I'm basing the purchase assumption on all the online leagues listed in your sig. I'm sure at least one league will upgrade meaning you will too.

Well we didn't upgrade to 12, so no, that's not actually a given. I just don't care enough about saving $5 to preorder now. There's some things that sound cool, but I found the 'new' online league aspects of 12 to be frustrating. Combine that with the financial aspects not seeming to work right when importing, plus long standing little things like WAR being implemented wrong, plus the sort players bug STILL hanging around from OTTP 2009?

Tell you what, include rainouts and I'll preorder it right now.

[MizzouRah]

Let's keep this thread on topic please. If you are not going to preorder, who cares?

Back on topic.. it's hard for me to play ootp 12 now, really love those new screens with the bigger player pictures!

All of it looks FANTASTIC!

[MizzouRah]

One thing I would like to see on the gameplay screen is all the scores at once like I've outlined below. Even cooler would be a way to click on a specific game in progress and be taken to that game to watch.

I have to sit and watch the other games cycle and think it would be so much better to have them all on the same screen as your game at the top like MLB Gameday does it.

[rewc27]

Deleted for duplicate response

[Tycobbler]

Originally Posted by ripwalk

Love the 'primary lineup' thing on the team main page that shows batting averages, homeruns, etc.... Looks great.

But the million dollar question remains. Will the AI teams use sensible "team specific" lineups or all behave the same across the board?

[Tycobbler]

Originally Posted by RchW

Well said. I'd also challenge anyone to tell me they get any better value out of any other $40 expenditure.

FM 12, there ya go

[DreamTeams]

Originally Posted by DreamTeams

This would be great. Perhaps include a color selection on the 'team colors' page for home: first and secondary color, and road: first and secondary color. That way we can set the color of the player onfield info box and the game will automatically set it accordingly. I'd set mine so that the home teams have a white box and the away teams have a grey box.

Overall, love many of the updated features, especially the league association. Already know what I'm going to do with that. Exciting indeed!

Originally Posted by Biggio509

The simplest fix is a reverse human team colors like FM has. So say the cards are red and white if AI and the Reds are white and red if human. Never really saw the use for it in FM, although if you play in 2D it might be quite handy, seems like an easy solution here though.

A simpler twist on this would be to give us a default toggle (in settings or preferences) that would keep things the way they are if unchecked or if checked would allow us to set the onfield box color (I'd set mine as white for home and grey for road team.) and the wording/ratings would be the team's primary color which would already be set.

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by Tycobbler

FM 12, there ya go

Meh. I think I've played OOTP 12 (the least played OOTP I've ever purchased, mind you) more than all 3 FMs I've owned altogether. It's just way too involved for casual fans to get any enjoyment out of it.