Anyone created a Random Debut League yet?

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by italyprof

Thanks David. I am beginning to think I should buy 24, which I have been hesitant to do so far. I trust the people here on this forum: should those of us playing historical and random debut go for it and get 24 after all?

I always wait a little while for the first few patches to be done, and am definitely doing so for 24 given the huge changes made to the historical DB and other features. Can't wait to get stuck into it, though - loving the new look.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by luckymann

I always wait a little while for the first few patches to be done, and am definitely doing so for 24 given the huge changes made to the historical DB and other features. Can't wait to get stuck into it, though - loving the new look.

That's the one benefit of being a serial starter and stopper. I can dive right in. I don't do elaborate setups, so if I have to start over, I can do so without much pain. I think what you do is definitely the smart way to go.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by David Watts

That's the one benefit of being a serial starter and stopper. I can dive right in. I don't do elaborate setups, so if I have to start over, I can do so without much pain. I think what you do is definitely the smart way to go.

I daren't even move my Bucs save from 22 for fear of inconsistency across the versions. When I do buy 24, I'll have 3 versions on the go, so I'm going to move whatever is on 23 to 24 when I buy it, then just forget 23 ever happened. It was, after all, OOTP's annus horribilis.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by luckymann

I daren't even move my Bucs save from 22 for fear of inconsistency across the versions. When I do buy 24, I'll have 3 versions on the go, so I'm going to move whatever is on 23 to 24 when I buy it, then just forget 23 ever happened. It was, after all, OOTP's annus horribilis.

I agree with your Bucs decision. My Pirates Moneyball started and remains on 21.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by luckymann

I daren't even move my Bucs save from 22 for fear of inconsistency across the versions. When I do buy 24, I'll have 3 versions on the go, so I'm going to move whatever is on 23 to 24 when I buy it, then just forget 23 ever happened. It was, after all, OOTP's annus horribilis.

Not sure what those last two words mean, but if it's what I think it is then OOTP17 and 18 were even worse than that. 17 was the first version I ever completely uninstalled. Would have done the same for 18, but was just too lazy.

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Not sure what those last two words mean, but if it's what I think it is then OOTP17 and 18 were even worse than that. 17 was the first version I ever completely uninstalled. Would have done the same for 18, but was just too lazy.

[annus horribilis[/I] is Latin, it means "horrible year" - and gives the sense of a year when everything went wrong.

[italyprof]

So, I broke down and bought 24. I am so far pleasantly surprised, but still wish they had given something we all playing historical leagues wanted. I very much have the sense of being ignored by the people making the game now.

But...what I really want to write about here is a few things I have noticed having run a few Random Debut drafts in 24.

First, as David Watt suggested, and to the delight of some of us, the random debut drafts are no longer super-star lists or else useless 20 rating players who only had a cup of coffee.

I use a 20-80 scale for all ratings by the way. Anyway, there is a much more democratic distribution of talent: not only are there now only a few superstars, and a few stars, followed by a few rounds' worth of good, talented players to form a team around, but the 20 rating players are also a little better - most of them seem to have had a season or two or three, making them useful bench players and not just "I am desparate, there is only this guy I never heard of" players.

Second, and be aware of this if like me you actually draft for a team. In 23, one could pick 2, 3, maybe 4 starters in the first 5-6 rounds and then settle on filling out your starting lineup of position players. About halfway, you would see that there were maybe 120 position players left but 200 plus pitchers, So you could get 7 of your 8 starting lineup players, pick one more starter, get your backup catcher, maybe one more pitcher if insecure about your rotation and then you HAD to go all out on batters, or they would all be gone.

Once ALL batters were gone, there would still be well over a hundred something pitchers left.

This held for 23 in all random debut drafts and while not quite as pronounced in straight (or gay, not being judgmental here) historical drafts (not random debut in other words), more or less you could emphasize batters over pitchers after the first 3-4 rounds, and still have your bullpen available to draft. Occasionally, if you wanted Sparky Lyle, Rollie Fingers, Mike Marshall, Mariano Rivera etc. in their prime, you would need to break this model a bit but otherwise the relievers went last.

NOT in 24. Pitchers are gone much faster and sooner than batters now. I have been having trouble getting to my minimum security level of 16 pitchers in the organization after the inaugural draft in random debut out of the 44 players drafted. They go fast. Batters now go more slowly than before, though of course the best ones, now being fewer in number and proportionally, go immediately. So the drafting is a bit more challenging and I have not yet found my optimal strategy.

[Reed]

Unless I missed a setting somewhere (which is always a distinct possibility) is setting the fielding position modifiers on the bottom right side of the Stats and AI tab.

In the past I would uncheck the automatic things like “automatically adjust league strategy when advancing to next season”, “automatically import historical creation modifiers”, and “automatically adjust league total modifiers for accuracy”. I normally start in 1895 play to spring of 1900, set draft to have draft rookies from 1901-present, play to spring of 1901, erase history, go to opening day of 1901, go to stats and AI,
and for league totals use I select my year for stats (1975 or whatever I am using).
At this point is where things become different. In 23 and earlier the position modifiers at the bottom right of the page the errors change to reflect 1975. In 24 they reflect the errors based on the year setting on the top left side “historical year”. So I have to make sure I set historical year to 1975 just before I select to autocalc the modifiers for 1975. After I autocalc the modifiers, I reset the historical year back to 1901 or whatever the current year year my historical is in and my fielding stats are then very accurate for 1975. Hopefully this makes some sense.
Anyway, if your fielding stats seem off and your historical year is very different from your modifier year, you might want to check this.
Of course like I said, maybe I missed a setting somewhere but this works for me.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Reed

Unless I missed a setting somewhere (which is always a distinct possibility) is setting the fielding position modifiers on the bottom right side of the Stats and AI tab.

In the past I would uncheck the automatic things like “automatically adjust league strategy when advancing to next season”, “automatically import historical creation modifiers”, and “automatically adjust league total modifiers for accuracy”. I normally start in 1895 play to spring of 1900, set draft to have draft rookies from 1901-present, play to spring of 1901, erase history, go to opening day of 1901, go to stats and AI,
and for league totals use I select my year for stats (1975 or whatever I am using).
At this point is where things become different. In 23 and earlier the position modifiers at the bottom right of the page the errors change to reflect 1975. In 24 they reflect the errors based on the year setting on the top left side “historical year”. So I have to make sure I set historical year to 1975 just before I select to autocalc the modifiers for 1975. After I autocalc the modifiers, I reset the historical year back to 1901 or whatever the current year year my historical is in and my fielding stats are then very accurate for 1975. Hopefully this makes some sense.
Anyway, if your fielding stats seem off and your historical year is very different from your modifier year, you might want to check this.
Of course like I said, maybe I missed a setting somewhere but this works for me.

Did you log this as a potential bug, Reed? Even if it isn't one, the devs' response(s) might give you some necessary and helpful clarification.

G

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Reed

Unless I missed a setting somewhere (which is always a distinct possibility) is setting the fielding position modifiers on the bottom right side of the Stats and AI tab.

In the past I would uncheck the automatic things like “automatically adjust league strategy when advancing to next season”, “automatically import historical creation modifiers”, and “automatically adjust league total modifiers for accuracy”. I normally start in 1895 play to spring of 1900, set draft to have draft rookies from 1901-present, play to spring of 1901, erase history, go to opening day of 1901, go to stats and AI,
and for league totals use I select my year for stats (1975 or whatever I am using).
At this point is where things become different. In 23 and earlier the position modifiers at the bottom right of the page the errors change to reflect 1975. In 24 they reflect the errors based on the year setting on the top left side “historical year”. So I have to make sure I set historical year to 1975 just before I select to autocalc the modifiers for 1975. After I autocalc the modifiers, I reset the historical year back to 1901 or whatever the current year year my historical is in and my fielding stats are then very accurate for 1975. Hopefully this makes some sense.
Anyway, if your fielding stats seem off and your historical year is very different from your modifier year, you might want to check this.
Of course like I said, maybe I missed a setting somewhere but this works for me.

Oh man, I can't comment on this. I've actually never once even looked at that section of the game, so I couldn't say if somethings changed or not. I agree with Luckyman though, report it and see what the bigs say.

[No Pepper]

Originally Posted by luckymann

I always wait a little while for the first few patches to be done, and am definitely doing so for 24 given the huge changes made to the historical DB and other features. Can't wait to get stuck into it, though - loving the new look.

I perhaps missed this, but what huge changes were made to the DB?

[Reed]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Did you log this as a potential bug, Reed? Even if it isn't one, the devs' response(s) might give you some necessary and helpful clarification.

G

I reported it this morning.
I wouldn’t have noticed it but started in 1901 using 1975 modifiers. Noticed I was getting 4 or more errors in games I was playing out when it should have been 2 total (1 per team). Checking setting/modifiers I saw the position modifiers were appropriate for 1901 while all the other modifiers were good for 1975.
To double check started a regular 1901 season with all default setting but tried to auto-calc 1975 for league total modifiers but the position modifiers still were set for 1901.
At least there is a work around.

[Jeff1787]

Originally Posted by Reed

In the past I would uncheck the automatic things like “automatically adjust league strategy when advancing to next season”, “automatically import historical creation modifiers”, and “automatically adjust league total modifiers for accuracy”. I normally start in 1895 play to spring of 1900, set draft to have draft rookies from 1901-present, play to spring of 1901, erase history, go to opening day of 1901, go to stats and AI,
and for league totals use I select my year for stats (1975 or whatever I am using).

What affect does checking or unchecking this box (in bold above) have on the game results in random debut?

[David Watts]

Alright, just noticed this morning and I put a post about it in the bug forum.

All the players in my current random debut that were part of the inaugural draft show 116 years service time. The players that were part of the 1st amateur draft show the correct service time.

[Beirnej1]

Yes ran into that too. I always clear my history and reset service time when starting a new random so doing it that way seems to be ok. Obviously not a help if you want to start with different service times.

I have also run into issues with a handful of real life stats having some sort of bug. It seems to happen more often with guys who debuted in 2022 and in the real life tab their ages are way off. When this happens their ratings are super low with high potential ratings. I am wondering if the game is going to wait for Cal to be 1,516 years old before he has a recalc year.

I just used this Cal Mitchell screen shot as an example of what is happening. It is not an error with Cal Mitchell though as he imported in another random I created just fine. There might be some issue with the real life stats and the historical import year which is found under the player and then editor tab.

Just so I can play a random debut league I went through each player in the draft pool and just deleted those that had this issue.

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Alright, just noticed this morning and I put a post about it in the bug forum.

All the players in my current random debut that were part of the inaugural draft show 116 years service time. The players that were part of the 1st amateur draft show the correct service time.

So Bartolo Colon is on your staff?

[David Watts]

Glad to report that the messed up service time bug was already fixed. I started my league before the patch with the fix and that's why I was seeing it. You have to start a new game. I did so and service time is as it should be.

[David Watts]

Loving this guys success so far. Mark actually won pitcher of the year in 1982. He followed 82 up with another great season in 83, especially when you factor in his Pirates finished 77-85, last in the NL East. I'm used to seeing this guy spend the majority of his time on the IL and then retiring.

[tribephan75]

To get around the draft I took each franchises best season from 2013-2022 (amazingly each team had at least one season above .500) Then I set the range of years for expansion era (1961 and beyond) The Cubs who already stacked ended up with Tom Seaver with#3 overall pick

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by tribephan75

To get around the draft I took each franchises best season from 2013-2022 (amazingly each team had at least one season above .500) Then I set the range of years for expansion era (1961 and beyond) The Cubs who already stacked ended up with Tom Seaver with#3 overall pick

This is a great idea. May have to give that a try some day.