Import Draft Class Not Working

[RipleyTheOriole]

My historical save I started in 2000 finally hit the point where the draft classes are terribly shrinking due to a lack of players hitting the majors historically. The 2022 draft class doesn't even have enough players to make it through the first round. I made a new, standard game just to import the 2023 draft class (Skenes, Crews, etc), but when I actually go to import the class into the historical save, nothing happens. Is there a fix for this? Am I doing something wrong?

I thought I'd be able to basically convert my historical save into a modern save by importing a draft class from 23, 24, 25, and then just letting the game generate its own imaginary draft classes into the future, but I'm unclear on how to actually do that. Right now, when I import the draft class, it says IMPORT COMPLETE! but then, nothing happens. I move to the next day, still nothing. I've never tried to import a draft class, so I'm utterly lost. It feels like something isn't working right, but I don't know for sure.

https://imgur.com/a/lDB2Rrb

EDIT: I thought it may have had something to do with the "Automatically import historical rookies" box being checked in the Game Settings -> League Settings -> Historical tab, but I just tried importing the draft class again after unchecking that box, but still nothing. It also has nothing to do with the " Disable automatic creation of free agents and fictional draft class" box under Game Settings -> League Settings -> Rules. Unchecked that box and tried again, but still no imported draft class.

2ND EDIT: I just did some more experimenting, but am still no closer to actually importing a draft class. I saved that historical game as a template and created a new, non-historical game based on that template. All the financials, stats, and history came over, but still when I try to import a draft class, no dice. The game is now actually creating a full, fictional draft class, so I could at least continue this game and its history, but I still can't get it to import Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes, Jackson Holliday, etc. It seems like Import Draft Class is completely nonfunctional.

[Lukas Berger]

I don't think the import draft class button is designed to import entirely new players.

Pretty much what you would have to do is fill out the draft class in-game with randomly generated players, then export that class. Then open that file in a spreadsheet program. Also open the 2023 draft file you previously exported.

Then copy over the players from the 2023 file into the file exported from the historical game, while keeping the original id's of the randomly generated players from the historical game, and just writing over their other details with the real 2023 players. Then import that file back into the game. In theory it should then import with the new players.

[RipleyTheOriole]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

I don't think the import draft class button is designed to import entirely new players.

Pretty much what you would have to do is fill out the draft class in-game with randomly generated players, then export that class. Then open that file in a spreadsheet program. Also open the 2023 draft file you previously exported.

Then copy over the players from the 2023 file into the file exported from the historical game, while keeping the original id's of the randomly generated players from the historical game, and just writing over their other details with the real 2023 players. Then import that file back into the game. In theory it should then import with the new players.

I'll have to give this a shot tomorrow, thanks for the tip. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Lukas Berger]

Sounds good!

I have not actually tested this myself recently, so it's possible it might not work for some reason, but at least in theory I don't see any reason it wouldn't work. So definitely worth a try at least.

[RipleyTheOriole]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Sounds good!

I have not actually tested this myself recently, so it's possible it might not work for some reason, but at least in theory I don't see any reason it wouldn't work. So definitely worth a try at least.

Just gave it a try, exactly as you instructed. I exported the fictional draft class, put that into Google Sheets, then copied over everything except the player IDs from the exported Real Life 2023 Draft Class. I then downloaded that new draft class file and imported it into a Custom Game using the historical save as a template.

When the draft class was announced, it still did not work. None of the player IDs match who they're supposed to be. I know that the names would be changed, as they're just placeholder values in the spreadsheet, but the players' attributes don't match up with their ID at all. Paul Skenes is ID Number 30484 in the spreadsheet, and Player ID 30484 in the game is a center fielder. Player ID 30910 in the game is a pitcher, and Player ID 30910 in the spreadsheet is a first baseman. There's no correlation with player ID in the spreadsheet and attributes in the game after importing the class.

At this point, it feels like the Import Draft Class feature is completely broken. Surely it's supposed to be able to import a real life draft class into a custom game?

[RipleyTheOriole]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Sounds good!

I have not actually tested this myself recently, so it's possible it might not work for some reason, but at least in theory I don't see any reason it wouldn't work. So definitely worth a try at least.

I've spent the last several hours trying to figure it out, and I finally got it to work. It's still very finnicky, but I managed to import the 2023 Draft Class and successfully draft it. In order to do so, I had to make sure the fictional draft class the game generated was exactly as big as the 2023 draft class, which caused its own problems.

The 2023 draft class in the game has 4,800 players, which means I had to set the Draft Rules to generate enough players to fill out 160 rounds, since it generates 30 players per round. However, the game would randomly change the number of rounds in the draft on draft day for reasons I don't understand. I ended up going into the Rules and changing the number of rounds after 20 rounds of drafting had already occurred to limit it.

Additionally, I realized why it wasn't working initially. When I downloaded the spreadsheet I'd edited, it was downloaded as an excel file type, and I (foolishly) thought I could just change the file type to a .csv with no issues. That was why it wasn't importing at all. Your idea did work, there was just some user error at play haha