Financial Issue 4 to 5 years in

[edg1931]

I am now on my 2nd play through where we hit about year 4 or 5 everyone is out of money because teams are signing guys to ridiculous contracts, regardless if they have the money, and it kills their budget. You can't make trades and it just kills the game. I tried used the adjust global coefficient but it didn't fix the issue. Losing another 5 year play through because of this is driving me nuts.

I've played OOTP since OOTP 2 and have been ranked in the top 100 multiple times, so I'm not new to OOTP, but can't figure out how to fix this. I turned inflation down from the default 2-4 to 0-1 in the second play with no luck. Clicking adjust global efficient didn't do anything except give everyone a zero at the end of their salary haha. It seems the financials are jacked up all over. Signing rookies to stupid signing bonus, resigning guys to 35-50 million a year when you have a 100 million budget for the entire team. Having no repercussions and rolling that over year after year and then teams have no money.

The AI financials seem so jacked to me in so many ways and just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this? Im going to uninstall and reinstall and hope it fixes, but just wanted to put it out there. I saw someone have some issues with the draft and people not having money, but I have it around year 3 it starts and by year 5 everyone is out of money.

[Marinersfan51]

Do you have a cash maximum set? If teams are running huge profits and the owners aren't withdrawing the cash, then they can wind up with big cash reserves that allow big free agent contracts that are out of place compared to their budgets.

[DrSatan]

There's a couple threads about this. It's a problem.

[low]

The front office and financial aspects of this game have been in need of a serious overhaul for a while now.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by low

The front office and financial aspects of this game have been in need of a serious overhaul for a while now.

Yep…and they don’t seem to want to touch it.

[sutnopia]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Yep…and they don’t seem to want to touch it.

But what are the things an ootp-player can do to make things better in the financial part of the game? Any settings to modify?

Thanks in advance!

[TheBrewCrew]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Yep…and they don’t seem to want to touch it.

Ya, but they brought everyone PT+ this year!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DrSatan]

Originally Posted by sutnopia

But what are the things an ootp-player can do to make things better in the financial part of the game? Any settings to modify?

Thanks in advance!

I'm about 20 years into my MLB save. About every other year I check the salaries for star players, etc, and adjust them. I don't roll them all the way back to 2023 numbers, but I will lower them if they are making too much of a jump. I've noticed the super star player will increase at a greater amount over time creating a huge gap between superstar salaries and the next tier. That's usually the only tier I have to mess with. I play with 1-2% inflation. I had the default setting the first couple seasons and saw $60-90M per season contracts. Now, in the 2040's I'm seeing top contracts in the mid $50M range, which feels right for 20 years in the future. If anything, I've over corrected.

The bigger issue is teams are still trying to unload new contracts if I shop a player. For the team, it would have made more sense to make the qualifying offer and then at least get a draft pick if the player is signed. It makes no sense for them to sign that same player to a huge contract and then offer to trade them to me for a nobody, and sometimes retain a percentage of the contract.

I don't do house rules. I'll take those stupid deals all day, keep my fan interest at 100, jack up my ticket prices, rinse and repeat. MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

[sutnopia]

Originally Posted by DrSatan

I'm about 20 years into my MLB save. About every other year I check the salaries for star players, etc, and adjust them. I don't roll them all the way back to 2023 numbers, but I will lower them if they are making too much of a jump. I've noticed the super star player will increase at a greater amount over time creating a huge gap between superstar salaries and the next tier. That's usually the only tier I have to mess with. I play with 1-2% inflation. I had the default setting the first couple seasons and saw $60-90M per season contracts. Now, in the 2040's I'm seeing top contracts in the mid $50M range, which feels right for 20 years in the future. If anything, I've over corrected.

The bigger issue is teams are still trying to unload new contracts if I shop a player. For the team, it would have made more sense to make the qualifying offer and then at least get a draft pick if the player is signed. It makes no sense for them to sign that same player to a huge contract and then offer to trade them to me for a nobody, and sometimes retain a percentage of the contract.

I don't do house rules. I'll take those stupid deals all day, keep my fan interest at 100, jack up my ticket prices, rinse and repeat. MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Thanks for input!

Inflation, can one toggle that setting for another result?
Have also heard about the maximum cash setting that can make the finance part of the game improve - according to some (?).

[SirMichaelJordan]

Inflation is set to 1-4 last I check which is way too much. It should be set to 0-3 if you want to replicate the curve in real life.

[sutnopia]

Originally Posted by SirMichaelJordan

Inflation is set to 1-4 last I check which is way too much. It should be set to 0-3 if you want to replicate the curve in real life.

Could you potentially see AI controlled teams handle finance better with no inflation?

[rudel.dietrich]

I want to be careful typing this.

But how is this stuff not caught? I know the beta testers work hard. I used to be one in the early 2010s.


But with this release, it seems like some things need to be addressed with the beta testing program.
I know OOTP does not use professional QA people (and even those never ensure a game is bug free, but they at least know how to test a game to a breaking point before release)

It seems like so many things slipped through this release. Did no one play a long term save during Beta?

Sure, a lot of things can be fixed with tinkering.
But at some point, many users just want the game to work ‘out of the box’

At some point you want to be able to play the game more than you want to tinker to ensure your league can make it more than half a decade.

Some serious changes need to happen with the beta program, either bring in a few professional QA people or redo the program and ‘assign’ people to test various aspects of the game.

Fuzzy high DPI displays, crashes, off-season trading, financials being out of control after a few seasons.
All of this should have been caught before release.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by sutnopia

But what are the things an ootp-player can do to make things better in the financial part of the game? Any settings to modify?

Thanks in advance!

There is only so much you can do in the game.

But as someone stated above, they can sometimes take a lot of effort.
Having to check each player every other season sounds really tedious.

And PSU is talking about larger issues like having deeper financial options than we do now.
Like simulating the financial concerns of being a real GM.
At least I think that is what he is saying, I don’t want to put words in his mouth.

The OOTP financial system has barely changed since the current game engine from OOTP 7.

It is still really simplistic and even then it breaks under pressure sometimes in situations like this.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

There is only so much you can do in game.

But as someone stated above, they sometimes take a lot of effort.
Like having to check each player every other season sounds really tedious.

And PSU is talking about larger issues like having deeper financial options than we do now.
Like simulating the financial concerns of being a real GM.
At least I think that is what he is saying, I don’t want to put words in his mouth.

The OOTP financial system has barely changed since the current game engine from OOTP 7.

It is still really simplistic and even then it breaks under pressure sometimes in situations like this.

Correct.

[edg1931]

There are a lot of problems that seem really annoying in financials. For example, every off-season, instead of going to arbitration I sign players to one year contracts, normally slightly below their expected arbitration number. I've done this for 15 years, and every OOTP version and is a way to Financials. A lot of MLB teams have been doing this for years. Now, the owner doesn't approve it because I dont have the money. They are ok with them going to arbitration and making more money? Makes no sense.

Knowing other are having this problem, maybe I'll wait for the next patch in hopes for some attempted fix. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

[wallewalls]

One of the biggest barriers to me actually starting new games is all of the tinkering that I have to do when I start one up.

I don't want to pile on exactly, and I know it's a tough job, but it really is frustrating that the game has had these issues out of the box for years and nothing is ever done about it. Especially so this year. The community found the AI trading issues on day one of the release, but it wasn't found in beta testing?

[AlpineSK]

Originally Posted by low

The front office and financial aspects of this game have been in need of a serious overhaul for a while now.

Easily for a decade.

[Paul Reuschel's Mustache]

If you release a faulty product in virtually any other industry several years in a row, your company is done, finished, over. Fortunately for OOTP - and unfortunately for us - there is no comparable game on the market at the moment.

Those of us who purchased the game are acting as a de facto QA team, pointing out defects in the game that should have been caught prior to release. From what I've read, this isn't the first time OOTP has hit the market with major bugs still to be ironed out. As a former business owner, I find that to be shameful!

It seems the developers are spending several months post-release fixing the latest game, instead of spending their time working on new features and upgrades for the subsequent version.

Maybe a release every year is unrealistic? Not sure how the OOTP team did it in years gone by, when they apparently added significant new features annually. Did they have a larger staff in the past? What has changed?

[sutnopia]

Did a simulation to 2035 with 0 inflation.
I do not see any 80-90M contracts and most teams have money available. Stopped the sim just before the 2035 season.
4-5 players had a 50M+ contract but no one over 60. The majority of players contracts are comparable to 2023.
For what it's worth.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Paul Reuschel's Mustache

If you release a faulty product in virtually any other industry several years in a row, your company is done, finished, over. Fortunately for OOTP - and unfortunately for us - there is no comparable game on the market at the moment.

Those of us who purchased the game are acting as a de facto QA team, pointing out defects in the game that should have been caught prior to release. From what I've read, this isn't the first time OOTP has hit the market with major bugs still to be ironed out. As a former business owner, I find that to be shameful!

It seems the developers are spending several months post-release fixing the latest game, instead of spending their time working on new features and upgrades for the subsequent version.

Maybe a release every year is unrealistic? Not sure how the OOTP team did it in years gone by, when they apparently added significant new features annually. Did they have a larger staff in the past? What has changed?

Pretty much mirrors FM, the gold standard of sports sims, in how their game is released and worked on after. It is the nature of the beast even for FM, with Sega, huge sales and a large development team. People may not like it, but it is what it is. I can't think of a sports game that doesn't go through this in some fashion or other? NBA2k, Madden (obviously), The Show, FM, etc. Hell, most of those don't know when to stop patching. IE they get the game playable but continue to tweak and break it again.

It's the same every year for OOTP, FM, and all(?) other sports titles too. There is one user here, EC, that buys on release but never plays until the last patch. There are users that wait until later in the patch cycle to buy, and get the game on sale. Both ways are valid and may be something you want to do in future? It would at least let you avoid feeling like part of the QA team.