Amateur draft running out high school players in the 5th round

[billyray1984]

I know OOTP 23 used to have this problem, but I hadn't seen it in 24.

I'm in year 2025, using the default amateur draft player creation settings and with the latest patch. The only thing I changed was to set the player dev target age to younger and tcr to 125.

In round 5, the draft doesn't have any more high school players. The remaining players are college age (21-22), but I also have a a good proportion of overagers. Nothing egregious like a bunch of 26 years old.

Any idea what might be causing this and what the fix is for next season ? The 2023 and 2024 pools were fine.

[breigns]

Are you using the real draft classes? I imagine the game isn't creating any HS players since the pools are still bigger than the default pool size which for a default file is 900 players. So until there's less than 900 players in the pools no one will be generated.

[billyray1984]

I have not added feeder leagues and have not changed the number of players created every year, so I guess I'm still at the point where the game uses real draft classes (i.e. a HS player that went undrafted/unsigned in 2023 will still show up as a college player at this point), altough I'm not sure how many real life HS players the game includes in 2025 so the game might be generating fictional players for HS at this point.

As I said, this has never been an issue for me and I never mess with the draft classes.

[ayaghmour2]

Make sure the setting below has not been changed. If this is set too high, the AI GMs will only target high school players, thus causing them to run out quickly. The default for HS is 40%

[billyray1984]

Originally Posted by ayaghmour2

Make sure the setting below has not been changed. If this is set too high, the AI GMs will only target high school players, thus causing them to run out quickly. The default for HS is 40%

That setting wasn't changed.

[KRSW]

If we do not change any of the default settings, there will be 39 players under the age of 18 eligible for the draft in 2025. That is too few. there will be 137 players in 2024 as well. This is also too few.
https://i.imgur.com/wwk5txM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Go8LOWo.jpg

[ayaghmour2]

Originally Posted by KRSW

If we do not change any of the default settings, there will be 39 players under the age of 18 eligible for the draft in 2025. That is too few. there will be 137 players in 2024 as well. This is also too few.
https://i.imgur.com/wwk5txM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Go8LOWo.jpg

Wow, something must really be off with your league. The only other thing I can think of is if you accidentally set an age minimum for player creation. But this looks to be a bug. If you haven't already, might be worth putting your file in the Bug Report section. One of the devs should be able to assist

EDIT: Whoops, looks like you aren't OP. Is this for a default game? I usually up the round generation (20 rounds, 50+ rounds generated) so the game brings high schoolers in

[billyray1984]

Originally Posted by KRSW

If we do not change any of the default settings, there will be 39 players under the age of 18 eligible for the draft in 2025. That is too few. there will be 137 players in 2024 as well. This is also too few.
https://i.imgur.com/wwk5txM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Go8LOWo.jpg

Ok so the problem is with the 2024 and 2025 draft classes. What settings do you recommend changing for any future game to alleviate the problem ? I've messed with a lot of stuff in OOTP but never with the draft classes.

Would adding a feeder league be a solution ?

[ayaghmour2]

Originally Posted by billyray1984

Ok so the problem is with the 2024 and 2025 draft classes. What settings do you recommend changing for any future game to alleviate the problem ? I've messed with a lot of stuff in OOTP but never with the draft classes.

Would adding a feeder league be a solution ?

I usually just make the amount of players generated way larger then the amount of rounds and I've never had it run out of high school players. I like this because it tends to generate more high school guys, and those that aren't drafted tend to go to college, so the game generates more high schoolers

A feeder could work too, since you can create more high school teams then college teams. The only downside is, if you're like me, it takes away some realism with everyone coming from the same group of schools, and depending on computer strength, it can make the file take longer to advance

Lastly, if you are in commissioner mode, you can manually create high school aged, draft eligible amateurs. I'm not in game right now, but if you need direction towards that process, more then willing to help

[billyray1984]

UPDATE : Year 2026, with no settings changed, the draft was fine, with a mix of HS and college players.

It seems that the issue is in draft 2024 and 2025 only.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by billyray1984

UPDATE : Year 2026, with no settings changed, the draft was fine, with a mix of HS and college players.

It seems that the issue is in draft 2024 and 2025 only.

We're working on adding in more HS players for these years.

[billyray1984]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

We're working on adding in more HS players for these years.

Ok thanks.

[Marcus75844]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

We're working on adding in more HS players for these years.

Can these players be added into an existing franchise if the draft pool isn’t revealed yet or does it require a new season/file to get these changes?