Increasing college feeders' realism

jaa36 · 09-02-2013, 04:04 PM

A few suggestions that could help better replicate the way that college leagues interact with pro leagues.

1. Allowing a college feeder to "recruit" from a high school feeder or from a generated list of high school players. This module could be similar to the draft module, except the ability to recruit a player to a team would be tied to where a player is from, the prestige of the program, and the finances of the program. A fun way to do it would be that you could spend x amount trying to recruit a given player, with the bigger programs having more to spend, and you wouldn't know how much another program might spend trying to recruit that player until the player commits to your program.

2. Allowing the user to set the number of years of eligibility a player has in a feeder league- four in high school and college, two in junior college- rather than going by age limits. I hate it when a player ends up getting five years in a high school or college feeder!

3. Allowing the user to set when the player is eligible to leave the league to join the draft pool- replicating college juniors being drafted. As it stands, players can only be drafted when they finish college. Then, if a drafted junior doesn't sign, he could return to college.

4. Tweaking league associations such that they enable you to better set up a true college world series. As it stands, you can't schedule games between different leagues, so your alternative is to create each conference as a separate "division," which means that each team has to be roughly equally strong, which leads to the need for #5...

5. I know I've suggested this before, but it would be helpful to be able to set "conference strength" and "team strength" for college feeders so that you could have certain teams that would be generally stronger over the long run (like LSU) in conferences that are generally stronger over the long run (like LSU). This ties in well to point 1 as stronger teams could recruit better. It would be a parallel model to the "financial model" that pro teams use in OOTP.

6. Allowing the user to decide how the draft pool will be constituted from feeder league teams. In other words, if I have 150 high school teams and 50 college teams, I don't want the draft pool to be made of 75% high school players- or more importantly, I don't want the percentage of players drafted out of high school to be 75%. I'd rather that about 30% of draftees were out of high school a la real life, but that the better ones that remain undrafted (and those that don't sign) end up going to college.

7. Finally, a player's "signability" could be improved. I remember seeing this suggested before, but rather than just calling someone a "very hard" sign (which in OOTP speak means you just have to give them what they ask for), it would be better if their signability were tied to what their options are. In other words, if a player is drafted out of high school or as a college junior, that makes them a relatively harder signing than a college senior. And rather than having the player ask for a specific amount, I'd rather that you try to figure out what a player would sign for based on the assigned slot bonus and how signable you think they are. As it is, it's too easy to just give them whatever they ask for and sign everybody.

Lukas Berger · 09-06-2013, 01:49 PM

Great stuff. 100% in agreement. I will bring this up on the beta forum too.

Le Grande Orange · 09-06-2013, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaa36

4. Tweaking league associations such that they enable you to better set up a true college world series. As it stands, you can't schedule games between different leagues, so your alternative is to create each conference as a separate "division,"...

I'd add to the above the importance of the playoff qualifiers in each college baseball conference (league in OOTP parlance) being determined by the record only within the conference, not the overall record.

Teams in NCAA baseball conferences play roughly half or fewer of their total regular season games against conference opponents. But it is those conference games which determine the standings and match-ups for the conference playoffs, not the overall record. (The overall record is used for ranking clubs in playoffs leading to the College World Series.)

So, really, with high school or college feeder leagues* there should be: (1) playoffs determined by records only within the league, not the overall record; (2) the overall record should be displayed in standings in addition to the league record; and (3) the option to toggle overall record to include the results of any post-season games. (Most reference source, such as the annual Baseball America Almanac, state the high school or college team's total record for the season. In other words, regular season, league playoffs, and interleague playoffs are combined.)

*Summer college leagues, should those ever be implemented, are the exception. These operate just like traditional minor leagues, including the tracking of attendance and the charging of admission (though the players are not paid).

Caporegime · 09-30-2013, 04:55 AM

Great list of suggestions that, if implemented, would really increase OOTP's level of immersion, realism & enjoyability.

Cryomaniac · 09-30-2013, 09:35 AM

College feeder leagues definitely need to be worked on to make them more realistic.

09-02-2013, 04:04 PM	#1
jaa36 Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 3,123	Increasing college feeders' realism A few suggestions that could help better replicate the way that college leagues interact with pro leagues. 1. Allowing a college feeder to "recruit" from a high school feeder or from a generated list of high school players. This module could be similar to the draft module, except the ability to recruit a player to a team would be tied to where a player is from, the prestige of the program, and the finances of the program. A fun way to do it would be that you could spend x amount trying to recruit a given player, with the bigger programs having more to spend, and you wouldn't know how much another program might spend trying to recruit that player until the player commits to your program. 2. Allowing the user to set the number of years of eligibility a player has in a feeder league- four in high school and college, two in junior college- rather than going by age limits. I hate it when a player ends up getting five years in a high school or college feeder! 3. Allowing the user to set when the player is eligible to leave the league to join the draft pool- replicating college juniors being drafted. As it stands, players can only be drafted when they finish college. Then, if a drafted junior doesn't sign, he could return to college. 4. Tweaking league associations such that they enable you to better set up a true college world series. As it stands, you can't schedule games between different leagues, so your alternative is to create each conference as a separate "division," which means that each team has to be roughly equally strong, which leads to the need for #5... 5. I know I've suggested this before, but it would be helpful to be able to set "conference strength" and "team strength" for college feeders so that you could have certain teams that would be generally stronger over the long run (like LSU) in conferences that are generally stronger over the long run (like LSU). This ties in well to point 1 as stronger teams could recruit better. It would be a parallel model to the "financial model" that pro teams use in OOTP. 6. Allowing the user to decide how the draft pool will be constituted from feeder league teams. In other words, if I have 150 high school teams and 50 college teams, I don't want the draft pool to be made of 75% high school players- or more importantly, I don't want the percentage of players drafted out of high school to be 75%. I'd rather that about 30% of draftees were out of high school a la real life, but that the better ones that remain undrafted (and those that don't sign) end up going to college. 7. Finally, a player's "signability" could be improved. I remember seeing this suggested before, but rather than just calling someone a "very hard" sign (which in OOTP speak means you just have to give them what they ask for), it would be better if their signability were tied to what their options are. In other words, if a player is drafted out of high school or as a college junior, that makes them a relatively harder signing than a college senior. And rather than having the player ask for a specific amount, I'd rather that you try to figure out what a player would sign for based on the assigned slot bonus and how signable you think they are. As it is, it's too easy to just give them whatever they ask for and sign everybody.

09-30-2013, 04:55 AM	#4
Caporegime All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: The Borough of Kings Posts: 1,713	Great list of suggestions that, if implemented, would really increase OOTP's level of immersion, realism & enjoyability. __________________ "If you don't know where you are going, you'll wind up someplace else." - Lawrence Peter Berra

09-06-2013, 01:49 PM	#2
Lukas Berger OOTP Developments Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Nice, Côte d'Azur, France Posts: 22,206	Great stuff. 100% in agreement. I will bring this up on the beta forum too.

09-30-2013, 09:35 AM	#5
Cryomaniac Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2007 Location: Hucknall, Notts, UK Posts: 4,902	College feeder leagues definitely need to be worked on to make them more realistic. __________________