Relinquishing my Super Powers

[Cobby]

Someone recently said something along the lines of: "You're going to win so much that you're going to get tired of all the winning" (Was it a political candidate that said that? Nah. I think it must've been an OOTP GM)

This seems to be a fairly common problem and people on this forum have offered several suggestions to combat it. Some suggestions I've seen: "go to stats only, to increase the fog of war", "decrease scouting accuracy", "have house rules for trading", "increase trading difficulty", "take over a low budget team".

So far, I haven't found the combination that works for me. (the ideal thing would be to have stronger AI, so we wouldn't have the problem to begin with) One thing I tried was to simultaneously manage my team and another competing team. That worked as far as providing some good competition for my original team, but it was rather exhausting and interrupted the flow of the game too much.

For me, I get rather attached to my own team. I love to see how it evolves over time, so I don't much like the idea of taking over another team. (although, I may end up doing that eventually) (like pulling off a Band-Aid). I also have trouble restraining myself when making trades - or in any other way. It just seems unnatural not to make the best deals you can for your team. And Stats only doesn't quite do it for me either.

As for trading - I think tactically, the AI does a good job. I get the feeling that I lose almost every trade, but still win the war. I think the trouble with the AI trading is more strategic than tactical. Anyway, that's just an aside.

Here's my latest scheme. My new rule is that every time my team wins the World Series I relinquish one of my managerial powers and assign it to either my bench coach or the assistant GM. I pick the power to relinquish randomly. Then every time the team finishes in 3rd place or lower, I randomly add back one of the powers (hasn't happened yet).

I'm not sure yet if I like this way of playing, but it's been fascinating (in a horrifying, "watching-a-train-wreck" sort of way) to build up a powerhouse and then watch the AI slowly destroy it.

I had a young extremely talented team, so we kept winning for a number of years after I started giving up control. I'm down to just two super powers left now - signing free agents and setting the budget. I'm still in the reserve clause era in my league, so signing free agents is almost meaningless. The budgets don't mean much either, but at least I can max out scouting and development.

The team is on the verge of crumbling now, so I think I'll be getting some powers back soon.

Basically, the core of the matter in my league is trades. That's the only way to build a consistent winner. It's interesting to compare what the AI does with what I would have done, or tried to do. It's also a way to get a handle on just where the AI is weak and how it can be improved.

In my case so far, it's been errors of omission more than errors of commission. The trades the AI has made so far have been tactically OK, but strategically wrong. (or perhaps, too focused on the present and ignoring the future) In one case the AI traded a promising young 25 year old pitcher and a mid-level prospect for a 29 year old shortstop. At the time we had plenty of pitching and shortstop was our weakest position, so it kind of made sense. But I never would have done it. The basic trouble with the trade was that three of our starting pitchers were over 30. We didn't need that 25 year old pitcher now, but in a couple of years he was going to be vital. And the talent pool for excellent young pitchers was thin.

It's now a few years later and the shortstop we traded for is in severe decline, two of those three older pitchers are now out of the rotation and one of our other younger pitchers has suffered a career-ending injury. Our rotation is in shambles and the pitcher we traded away is tearing it up near the top of the leader boards for another team.

But, the main problem is the trades the AI isn't making. We've had plenty of talent languishing as backups or on the reserve roster. I would have been trying to trade these players for younger prospects - whatever I could get for them. But the AI hasn't made a single trade along those lines. Instead, I end up releasing these players (I still have release powers) in a few years when their trade value has declined to zero. So, that's the main problem so far. The AI isn't keeping the prospect pipeline going. (a winning team can't do it through the draft, but it doesn't seem like we'll continue to win much longer....)

Anyway. I'm not quite sure what the point is of this long rambling post. I guess to offer another possibility for those that are looking for more challenge but are loyal to a particularly team. Similar to the "take over a losing team and build it up" suggestion. It my case it would be: "let the AI ruin your team, then take it over again and build it back up".

And also, to point out that watching the AI control a team that one is familiar with is a good way to highlight where the AI goes wrong compared to human managers. Perhaps, that could lead eventually to stronger AI. I think the basic concept the AI is lacking is something along the lines of: "if the team is strong enough to easily win in the present, then there is no sense in trying to make it stronger. Instead trade some of that present strength for future strength."

[italyprof]

Thank you for posting this. This is my MAIN problem playing the game, compounded by the fact that I love baseball largely because it is one of the few things about American life with a sense of history, (ever further compounded by my living overseas and needing an outlet for homesickness or nostalgia), and so I play almost exclusively Historical Leagues, either with random or with historical player debuts.

I agree that a stronger, more sensible AI drafting and trading function is the real solution (WHY IS Stan Musial still available in round4?).

Like you I try stats but with historical that solves nothing.

I appreciate your new approach and will try it. In the meantime I think the biggest question is the inaugural draft. If you can start out with a .500 or lower team, you get the fun of building it into a winner, then winning, then watching it unwind, perhaps using your system.

But win right off the bat and it is easy to lose interest.

The solution adopted by most is to let the AI draft for you at first. That probably works more often than not (SOME team is going to be the best in each league, a 1 in 8 probability in many historical leagues, even letting AI pick), but it has the disadvantage that your team may be boring, with players you don't know, don't care about, making that other element of fun, the emotional attachment to a team, harder to make happen.

So I consciously pick steering away from real superstars, but that is not enough, somehow, a rotation of number 2 and 3 starters still ends up being the only one with five regular starters. Same with position players. So now my strategy is to strengthen the competition instead:

I set up a random debut draft in a historical league. Then I add another league, create an association with a common draft pool, then I delete the second league, doubling the number of decent players. If I draft and find at the end that my team still looks like the only one with 8 regular players with full time PA and four or five good starters, I go to Free Agents and add some historical teams, 3, 4, 5, then set up another fantasy draft, eliminate the historical teams, and draft again.

If I overdue it I expand the league a bit, leaving some of my good players unprotected.

At some point it will work out, the equilibrium point reached where I have a third or fourth place team at best but with players I like for one reason or another, increasing my interest in the team and the league.

But we do need an AI that drafts better players. That or we have to do the inaugural draft for each team so that there is some rough parity.

Good luck.

[Markus Heinsohn]

This is funny, I am pretty bad when I play OOTP. I always wonder what people do when they end up with a 120 win team after 2 seasons.

I play the game with settings straight out of the box, but change the ratings scale to 1-10... that is challenging enough for me.

[RchW]

Maybe I'm easily satisfied but I never get tired of winning. If I win, which is much harder and rarer in recent versions, I want to do even better the next year.

I play modern day ie 2007-2009 stat MLB fictional clone leagues. In earlier versions I was a dominant multiple WS winner and my focus was to replicate Yankee style dynasties like 5 consecutive WS. I did it a couple of times in one league and once in another league but never won 6 in a row which was the criteria for quitting.

Eerily in both main leagues I'm stuck at 27WS over a similar timeline as the RL Yankees and my dominance since v15 is gone. In the league I play most, the last 11 seasons (v16-17) show one WS win, (a shocking 88W division winner that got lucky) one WS loss and 4 seasons (3 consecutive) missing the playoffs. I didn't lose interest, the game got better and better.

I have little reason to quit these leagues now because the objective has changed from domination to just making the playoffs. It takes 2-3 times longer to play each season because I spend more time evaluating and acquiring talent with much less success.

YMMV

[NoOne]

a lower scale is a huge difference! it's very similar to increasing inaccuracy.

you can focus on all sorts of things while winning to stay interested... e.g. i deviate from my normal behaviour when i retain a player that can set career records into their 30's with no intention to trade... i may lose a game or two more near the end, but oh well when it's deducted from ~140 wins

as far as winning, you can always win more! lol... with draft pick trading on a few years ago i think i got to 156 or 157wins with mostly perfect health. i didn't even maximize that abuse (e.g. i did not take advantage of sign and trades)... you already got at least one good method of player procurement, now start adding more methods or more sophisticated wrinkles to how you do it now etc etc... (plus, anything learned doing this translates to other leagues, if not abuse or rules related etc etc)

even after turning draft pick trading off i looked into ways to abuse international FA amatuers, lol. did i say abuse? i meant maximize!.. had i done that togeterh with draft pick trading i'm prretty sure a perfect 162-0 is possible.

i haven't played enough of 18 to know if the new $5M cap on international ama. FA will drop the win total a ton... i'm guessing ~10wins less or so, becaue it's not just the ones on my MLB team, but all the assets i get in return for those players, too. 130/140s win seasons can become 110s/120s seasons very easily. more expensive FA wil lbe used which means greater exposure to risk from aging etc plus the increased cost = less quality players in total on team.

even on the toughest settings you should find a way to make the playoffs ~nearly every year... can't control things like injuries though or random talent changes (be hard on yourself, but not irrational)... bound to miss some. avoid age, don't overpay.. take 1 bad year to save the following 3, etc etc... if it's a net negative over time i simply don't do it and take my lumps. a real life example of what not to do: Detroit Tigers 2006-2017, lol.... (blame illitch, not dombrowski, although the latter is part of why they are so late at adding an analytics department)

try new things if not consistently a good playoff contender. biggst key there is recognizing ratings that are like "overall" -- not very specific in their description -- Stuff, contact are like this, but not as extreme as overall.

even movement is tied to pitch types? i forget what the verbage is in edito with comish mode on. basically if it is calculated using multiple other ratings, it's means that not all "80's" are equivalent... multiple inputs result in teh same result.. that should tell you something about it's usefulness.