Some random observations on the road from OOTP noob to seasoned and grizzled veteran

[luckymann]

OK, so I thought I'd start this thread as much to verbalise and contextualise my thoughts as to hopefully be of some help to those starting out on this amazing game. They will be posted - as the title says - randomly as they come to mind or I experience them in my own OOTP universe, not in order of priority or importance or anything like that. Even though they will be stated here as absolutes they are anything but, just my own take on the various aspects of the game as I have encountered them since joining the OOTP ranks when I purchased XX in 2019. That experience has been totally derived in a fictional / custom league, and therefore will likely be most relevant to that style of play, although I hope they’ll also have some broader utilitarian value with regard to the way the game works.

My comments here will from time to time include paraphrases of, or developments upon, concepts introduced by others on this forum. I won't credit them unless the relevant thread comes to mind, but am happy to make attributions where asked to. I am also happy to stand corrected when necessary, as long as corroborating evidence to the contrary is forthcoming.

[luckymann]

Just as in the game it simulates, every little detail has an attributable and, to varying degrees, quantifiable value in OOTP. While ratings and stats dominate, the less obvious elements of a player’s makeup also go towards determining their performance both on and off the field.

Secondary skills such as baserunning and bunting, which can often slip under your guard, are more relevant for certain game styles EG smallball. But a player who does these things well is more often than not a more rounded player, so keep that in mind.

A player’s personality traits have more effect than you think. I have seen time and time again players with low Work Ethic underperform their ratings and vice-versa. Same goes, but to a lesser extent, with Intelligence. Adaptability remains a bit of an enigma to me. That being said, look for as much green in that part of the screen as you can when assessing a player. Avoid Unmotivated, Selfish and Disruptive players like clichés in a plague. Outspoken is 50-50 in my books, same with Prankster. But Sparkplugs are usually an asset to a ballclub and almost invariably outperform their ratings. And have at least one Captain and as many Leaders as you can. Ignore Fan Fav: it means little and has no bearing whatsoever as far as I have been able to tell. Let’s put it this way: I have traded a Fan Fav player and not been punished on my Fan Interest.

On the topic of which, player popularity is a bit of a double-edged sword. Extremely popular players will help put bums on seats, no doubt about it. But that can come back to bite you if you trade them or lose them to Free Agency. If you are in this situation and want to soften the blow, try and replace like for like in this regard, although easier said than done. But whatever you do, don’t pander to your fan base too much when making decisions. Yes, if you lose a popular player you’ll take a sudden hit in Fan Interest and your attendance figures will be impacted. But this will happen even more if you keep a dud simply for your fans’ love of him and the team starts losing.

Last, but absolutely not least, there is the matter of a player’s injury-proneness. My personal policy is to never touch Fragile players unless absolutely necessary, and if you do like the look of one, my rule of thumb is a 20-25% markdown of their ratings. Check their injury history to get a better handle on the types of injuries they are susceptible to and how long historically they have resulted in the player being out of the game. (Or, for even more precision, go into the Editor, where it gives a whole raft of zone-based ratings.) Wherever possible, and with SP in particular, go the Durable option over the Normal. I’ve seen plenty of Normal players go down for season-ending injuries and come back Fragile. I’ve never seen it happen to a Durable.

[luckymann]

Anyone playing this game obviously has an element of the kid at heart. And so our innate sense is to rip open the box and go crazy. That’s fine, go crazy. But do so using some of the inbuilt game types before creating your own idiosyncratic, individual and immersive version of the game. Try out all the various types of games that come with OOTP. Have a go at some start-ups, both in-game and created by those on this forum. Sim out some seasons to see how it all works. Spend some time working your way through the forums making note of things you both want to incorporate into your game and want to avoid. Learn from the failures and successes of others and tailor that information to your own needs.

In-game, OOTP is like a series of underground passages. There are loads of screens providing a wealth of valuable information that are not obvious at first to the new user. It will be time well invested if you methodically work your way deeper and deeper into these. Figure out which will be useful to you and which will not.

Go into the player editor and have a look at how the engine gathers everything together to create a fictional player or utilises a historical player’s real-life stats and characteristics to replicate them for use in this game. The better base of knowledge in this regard you have the better you will understand the workings of the game and how to apply them in your own universe. I didn’t do this and it was only good fortune that my league still worked out to my liking.

Once you feel ready to play god and create your own OOTP universe, take some time to plan it out, even if only in broad strokes. Ask yourself “what do I want this world to look like in 20 / 30 / 40 seasons?” Make every decision thenceforth with those ends in mind.

Spend as much time as you can on the Mods forum. It is a treasure trove of genius work done by experienced hands at OOTP. There you will find schedules, facegens, uniforms / caps / logos, graphics, ballparks, and so much more. Trust me, the more of these you incorporate into your universe the more pleasure and immersive reality it will bring you.

Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions on the forums but look around on here for the answer to your question (Google is your friend, these forums are tough to navigate) before asking it. Don’t be put off if you don’t get a response. If you do, be sure to thank the respondent. And always remember there is rarely the perfect answer. Everyone plays the game their own way, therefore their experiences and expertise are purely from a personal perspective that will rarely, if ever, completely align with your own.

[luckymann]

Once you are a bit further down the road on your OOTP journey, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty by tinkering with settings and tailoring them to your preferred style of play. But I don’t advise doing so too early, as any mistakes are hard to undo once a season / league is rolling, so you need to understand what you are doing and the effect it will have. Once you feel confident you have ample working knowledge, then get to it. But only make major adjustments in the off-season is my advice, don’t change course midstream. Measure twice and cut once beforehand and you shouldn’t run into too many problems.

Obviously there is a close relationship between OOTP and the amazing resources of Baseball Reference, which interface really well with the game. Use this to your advantage, but carefully. The in-game league total stat modifiers are both incredibly accurate and all-powerful with regard to the overall stats produced in your league.

Go through the season stats available on BR (here’s the links to the ones I use: PITCHING HITTING) and pick a year that’s to your liking, then go to LEAGUE SETTINGS>STATS & AI and choose that year from the dropdown in the LEAGUE TOTALS section. But keep in mind your overall league strategy should at least be somewhat in line with the modifier you choose. If you choose a season with massive HR totals and then select a deadball year strategy some clash is inevitable. Although that might be fun, too.

Don’t be a stick in the mud, live a little. Every so often go out of your comfort zone. Trust me it’ll liven up the game for you. Then go back within your favoured bell curve once you’ve had enough of the outlier stuff.

I am yet to encounter the statistical blowouts others have spoken of on here, but there is enough anecdotal evidence to show that they are not a figment of our collective imaginations. If you see some statistical trends taking hold in your league that aren’t to your liking, nip them in the bud before they are too far gone.

[Ty Cobb]

I always love to see new guys come in and be patient and thorough!!! It's a daunting thing, and many pass it by, content to dawdle on PT or run a prefab quickstart.

Kudos to you for being daring!

Your concept here is a useful and productive one. I hope not only that you'll continue, but that others will take advantage of what is good, solid advice.

A belated welcome aboard!

[luckymann]

If I have one small gripe about the OOTP interface it is that the flow between screens is somewhat cumbersome. This can be improved with some work on your part. Take the time to set up the various pages to your liking wherever possible. Your team’s homepage is like the dashboard in your car, and each section that comprise it can be set up to display the information you desire where you desire it. I thoroughly recommend you do so.

Get in there and customize as much as you can. There is a cornucopia of data available within OOTP, but some of it can be difficult to track down in a hurry. Trust me, when you are in the middle of a vicious trade negotiation the last thing you want to be doing is trying to remember where a pitcher’s RSG is. Create pages that contain all of the various stats you place importance on in the one place and leave all the others out by adding one or more Stat Rows into the Batting / Pitching / Fielding Stats section of any player. Pick which stats you want et voila, your ready reckoner is… well… ready. Same goes with your Pitching and Lineups pages.

Shortlists are your friend. They take time to setup and maintain (and I know some people hate the fact that a player’s name is capitalized whenever they are added to a shortlist or have a note attached to them; I, too, dislike the aesthetics of this, but tolerate it because it is a constant reminder that there’s something about those players I need to watch) but if you do them right the possibilities are endless. Want to keep track of the 5 SPs you wanted but missed out on in the Draft? Put ‘em in a shortlist and Bob’s the guy sticking it to your Aunt Martha while Uncle Fred’s at work. Again, these are fully customizable and I advocate you making the effort to do so. And unless you have the memory of an elephant, putting notes on players is a great way to keep track of your thoughts on them, the areas of their game that need work, how long their girlfriend’s legs are, pretty much anything.

A wise man once told me “He who fails to prepare is preparing to fail”. Putting in the effort behind the scenes in these sorts of ways will not only greatly enhance your enjoyment of the game but also greatly improve your chances of success.

[luckymann]

Commissioner Mode is fantastic as it allows you to make important changes you want applied to your OOTP Universe. But it also allows you to cheat like a married guy on a boys’ weekend in Vegas. Resist the urge to do so. If you need to make changes that can only be made as Commish, switch it on, make the changes, and switch it off again as soon as you are done.

Same goes with gaming the game, or “gimping the AI” as I’ve seen it called in these forums. The A in AI obviously stands for “Artificial” and, at the time of this post, that still equates to inferiority compared to the human version. Set AI trading to Very Difficult, or else you will be forced to resist the temptation of being able to swindle the Computer GMs almost at will. Go and do that right now because believe me, when it’s two days before the deadline and your Red Sox are a half-game behind the Damn Yankees, and some engine-driven manager offers you Gerrit Cole for a one-legged myopic shortstop with the range of your son’s toy walkie-talkie who is batting .145 in Rookie League and a 16th round pick in next year’s Draft, not even the Dalai Lama himself would be able to turn it down.

Red Sanders was on the money when he quipped “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”. That being said, I reckon he’d look at the Astros with disgust for what they are alleged to have done in pursuit of the ultimate success. There are no sanctions levied in OOTP if you cheat your way to winning, no takebacks, no Ken Rosenthals or Evan Drelliches to bring you down. There is only your conscience. And, unless you are a sociopath, that should be all you need to keep you on the straight and narrow.

[luckymann]

The more you immerse yourself into your OOTP the more enjoyment you’ll derive. But there’s a flipside. The more moving parts you introduce, the greater the workload involved. Every minor league team means more players to manage, more aspects of the game that require your attention. It can quickly become overwhelming, which will just as quickly be to the detriment of your franchise and the players it contains.

This is where you need to avail yourself of the AI. Delegate as much as you can to your computer staff. Let them handle all of the tasks that will otherwise distract you from the really important elements of running a franchise.

However…

The AI is not you, and will try to run its own show, one that will usually and to varying degrees differ from how you want it run. Therefore you need to tell it how you want it run. The more time you take to do so, the closer the AI will be able to align itself to your mindset.

It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys. So surround yourself with the best staff and managers available who are suited to your style of play. Set appropriate game strategies for each team run by one of these AI managers and update them regularly throughout the season as players with different skillsets are called up and sent down. Set up rotations and lineups how you want them and get the AI Manager to lay out depth charts based on them. Lock players at the levels or positions you want them to be playing and monitor their performance as regularly as you deem necessary to ensure a smooth progression up the ranks and a readiness to perform in the ways you need them to when they reach the bigs.

More on this in the next post.

[hfield007]

13 years in and well over 2000 hours played I still learn stuff playing this game and change the way I play. I love seeing people get into this game and really dive in and share that experience.I'll never forget the week I found this game through a random google search and being blown away by how deep it was even that long ago. Bravo on this.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by hfield007

13 years in and well over 2000 hours played I still learn stuff playing this game and change the way I play. I love seeing people get into this game and really dive in and share that experience.I'll never forget the week I found this game through a random google search and being blown away by how deep it was even that long ago. Bravo on this.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this game has ruined my life in the best way...

Thanks for the support!

PS What happened to your "Battle for Supremacy" Dynasty? Only 1 page and it just stops?

[KikiVincent]

Fantastic post!