Is it just me, or is OOTP harder than ever?

[averagegatsby]

I've been playing OOTP for well over a decade now, and I used to think I was pretty good. For starters I only play with the Royals so I have to manage running a team with real financial difficulties (at least until they become a perennial power house). And I usually win my first world series in the first 5 or 6 seasons, but I have now run multiple saves where I can barely get past the first round of playoffs. For instance in my current game I am in year 2036, I've gone to the playoffs 10 of the last 11 seasons, usually as the winner of my division. But I've never been able to build a legitimately great team like I could in the past. Usually my teams are good at run scoring or run prevention but not both. I've yet to develop a really good player, and players I acquire never seem to perform as well with my team as they do with others.

Some of this I assume is bad luck, but I am managing my team with attention to detail that I have never done, but it seems like every year I either start terrible or start great and finish the opposite. This season I just completed I had a winning percentage well over 700 3 months into the season, then finished with an 89 win season or something like that. And this happens every year. I can not for the life of me put together a great season from start to finish.

I have excellent coaches (or as excellent as can be) at every level. I make sure all my coaches are at least excellent in both player development and influencing mechanics. I make sure my coaching staff gets along. I make sure my roster has plenty of captains and at least one prankster or spark plug. I make sure my coaches are suitable for the players I have. Traditionally I have always focused on contact with eye second. I have excellent defense and I have an entire staff of nothing but ground ball pitchers. I routinely lead the league in run prevention, but every hitter I acquire does poorly... EVEN JUAN SOTO IN HIS PRIME! I know baseball is hard, and I know I'm probably just missing something, but for the life of me I can not figure out how to get over the hump.

And to follow up, I've never been great at player development as I usually have good teams and its hard to draft great when you are always drafting towards the bottom, but I traditionally always traded prospects for young guys with tremendous potential, but now trading for young guys is harder than ever.

...I dunno guys, I've never posted or complained about this game, but its really getting to me.

[Bobbyraz49]

I think it's fine. And I never adjust any sliders. Play in one pitch mode and I play every game.

[averagegatsby]

I've always just simulated everything. Usually a week at a time until or until the simulation is interrupted. Lately less so as I'm just micromanaging everything trying to figure out what I need to improve on... Also, I'm not even necessarily complaining about the game being harder, at times playing previous versions I had felt like my approach had broken the game, I had a team win 130 games once. I had a team where all 5 starting pitchers went to the all star game and allowed less than 500 runs over an entire season. I've done wild things with this game, but I can't even come close to what I've done in previous versions.

[highandoutside]

Wait. Are we now complaining that you can’t win a World Series every five years with the Kansas City Royals?

[averagegatsby]

Originally Posted by highandoutside

Wait. Are we now complaining that you can’t win a World Series every five years with the Kansas City Royals?

Again, I'm not necessarily complaining... just seeking confirmation that the game has gotten harder. And if so, I'm curious what other people are doing that isn't just having a 300 million dollar pay roll.

[uruguru]

I would like to chime in and remind that OOTP is very susceptible to RNG. If you take a team and sim it identically 10 times, it is typical to see a 15-20 difference in wins between the best of the 10 and the worst of the 10.

That can sometimes make the difference between comfortably winning the division and finishing under .500. Just from the randomness of the sim.

So it might not be harder, just that you got unlucky.

[dudefan]

i would agree it is definitely harder than previous sims, which i appreciate. one thing i noticed that finding and developing talents is way harder, whereas i had several top 10 prospects easily in former versions.
i read that there might also be a bug involved in development of young players, but i cant really tell.

once i had a championship team it was easy to maintain that level with trading topstars before the end of their free agency for top talents rinse and repeat. it seems trade AI improved or is at least harder at baseline and takes this in consideration,


one thing i suspect (but didnt have time to try to prove it), is that defense stats focused approach is (still) OP.

my offensive focused teams flamed out quite fast

[jdrake349]

Originally Posted by averagegatsby

I've been playing OOTP for well over a decade now, and I used to think I was pretty good. For starters I only play with the Royals so I have to manage running a team with real financial difficulties (at least until they become a perennial power house). And I usually win my first world series in the first 5 or 6 seasons, but I have now run multiple saves where I can barely get past the first round of playoffs. For instance in my current game I am in year 2036, I've gone to the playoffs 10 of the last 11 seasons, usually as the winner of my division. But I've never been able to build a legitimately great team like I could in the past. Usually my teams are good at run scoring or run prevention but not both. I've yet to develop a really good player, and players I acquire never seem to perform as well with my team as they do with others.

Some of this I assume is bad luck, but I am managing my team with attention to detail that I have never done, but it seems like every year I either start terrible or start great and finish the opposite. This season I just completed I had a winning percentage well over 700 3 months into the season, then finished with an 89 win season or something like that. And this happens every year. I can not for the life of me put together a great season from start to finish.

I have excellent coaches (or as excellent as can be) at every level. I make sure all my coaches are at least excellent in both player development and influencing mechanics. I make sure my coaching staff gets along. I make sure my roster has plenty of captains and at least one prankster or spark plug. I make sure my coaches are suitable for the players I have. Traditionally I have always focused on contact with eye second. I have excellent defense and I have an entire staff of nothing but ground ball pitchers. I routinely lead the league in run prevention, but every hitter I acquire does poorly... EVEN JUAN SOTO IN HIS PRIME! I know baseball is hard, and I know I'm probably just missing something, but for the life of me I can not figure out how to get over the hump.

And to follow up, I've never been great at player development as I usually have good teams and its hard to draft great when you are always drafting towards the bottom, but I traditionally always traded prospects for young guys with tremendous potential, but now trading for young guys is harder than ever.

...I dunno guys, I've never posted or complained about this game, but its really getting to me.

Not to add salt to the wound but, I accidentally won the WS in my first year of a Royals build while trying to sell overpriced contracts and acquire prospects while reshaping the team style probably just an incredibly lucky run but I was kind of turned off by how "easy" it was as someone who is far from an OOTP savant. Funny how different experiences can be and likely speaks to how random things can be sometimes.

[averagegatsby]

Originally Posted by jdrake349

Not to add salt to the wound but, I accidentally won the WS in my first year of a Royals build while trying to sell overpriced contracts and acquire prospects while reshaping the team style probably just an incredibly lucky run but I was kind of turned off by how "easy" it was as someone who is far from an OOTP savant. Funny how different experiences can be and likely speaks to how random things can be sometimes.

I know there are tons of variations, I recently did a "ctrl, alt, delete" to undo some thing I forgot to do, and the 2 months that resimmed were not even remotely the same. So I know there is a lot of variation to the outcomes, but man... It's been a grind in OOTP25 at times. I started over (again), and I had a .545 winning percentage going into August which is good not great, and then proceeded to go .348 the rest of the way... it was brutal.

[Curve Ball Dave]

Originally Posted by averagegatsby

I know there are tons of variations, I recently did a "ctrl, alt, delete" to undo some thing I forgot to do, and the 2 months that resimmed were not even remotely the same. So I know there is a lot of variation to the outcomes, but man... It's been a grind in OOTP25 at times. I started over (again), and I had a .545 winning percentage going into August which is good not great, and then proceeded to go .348 the rest of the way... it was brutal.

Two sim seasons ago I had my division in the bag as August began. Then we went into the tank and lost the division on the last day of the season (no wild cards in my universe).

We won it all the next year.

I like that it's a challange. It makes me appreciate winning all the more.

[Guthrien]

I do agree it's gotten harder in some ways. The logical reason for that would be that the game has gotten smarter. Whether you agree with all the changes or not, the outcome is that your decisions mean more and there are more of them to make. Luckily the game is pretty customizable if it's erring towards 'not fun' (in most areas) but to me, this signals the success of the team in evolving the game.

[Harveytime]

Originally Posted by averagegatsby

I've been playing OOTP for well over a decade now, and I used to think I was pretty good. For starters I only play with the Royals so I have to manage running a team with real financial difficulties (at least until they become a perennial power house). And I usually win my first world series in the first 5 or 6 seasons, but I have now run multiple saves where I can barely get past the first round of playoffs. For instance in my current game I am in year 2036, I've gone to the playoffs 10 of the last 11 seasons, usually as the winner of my division. But I've never been able to build a legitimately great team like I could in the past. Usually my teams are good at run scoring or run prevention but not both. I've yet to develop a really good player, and players I acquire never seem to perform as well with my team as they do with others.

Some of this I assume is bad luck, but I am managing my team with attention to detail that I have never done, but it seems like every year I either start terrible or start great and finish the opposite. This season I just completed I had a winning percentage well over 700 3 months into the season, then finished with an 89 win season or something like that. And this happens every year. I can not for the life of me put together a great season from start to finish.

I have excellent coaches (or as excellent as can be) at every level. I make sure all my coaches are at least excellent in both player development and influencing mechanics. I make sure my coaching staff gets along. I make sure my roster has plenty of captains and at least one prankster or spark plug. I make sure my coaches are suitable for the players I have. Traditionally I have always focused on contact with eye second. I have excellent defense and I have an entire staff of nothing but ground ball pitchers. I routinely lead the league in run prevention, but every hitter I acquire does poorly... EVEN JUAN SOTO IN HIS PRIME! I know baseball is hard, and I know I'm probably just missing something, but for the life of me I can not figure out how to get over the hump.

And to follow up, I've never been great at player development as I usually have good teams and its hard to draft great when you are always drafting towards the bottom, but I traditionally always traded prospects for young guys with tremendous potential, but now trading for young guys is harder than ever.

...I dunno guys, I've never posted or complained about this game, but its really getting to me.

Just a couple notes if your offense is struggling. You mentioned you focus on contact first with eye second

In this era power is of uber importance and more valuable than eye. Without knowing your team by ratings I suspect if your offense is struggling its almost always a lack of power hitters. I understand with a small market getting power bats can be tricky but they are necessary to have a top notch offense in todays game. If you have to you can trade prospects for retained veterans with power on expiring deals. Having multiple lefty power bats with >=65 HR power is very valuable.

Secondly is don't worry about the FB/GB tendencies of pitchers. groundball/flyball is overrated. I won't get into detail on why but flyball pitchers can be much better than groundball if you have high range OF's.

[Jasper70]

Yes, it is harder. Mainly, the system (AI, gnomes rolling 20 sided dice, whatever the system is) is making far fewer mistakes and takes advantage of everyone of yours.

I'm 71 and a grouchy old man

[jeffkost]

I agree that ootp 25 is the hardest yet. I tend to start a new save with every update, and i continue to lose. Toronto, miami, and now 4 years of failing to build around bobby wit jr. Im thinking I may have to adjust some house rules ive developed over the years, like allowing ai to use waiver wire and rule 5 while i abstain. My next save will be all hands on deck, cause it seems like the AI has stepped up.

[texasmame]

Stealing is a coin-toss now and "stuff" no longer really translates to K potential.

SAD!

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by Jasper70

I'm 71 and a grouchy old man

At 71 we are allowed to be grouchy!

[Pelican]

I tried a sim giving Royals plenty of money for free agents (or player development), and the team is barely at .500 with Snell, Bellinger, and others. The AI has definitely gotten "smarter", even as I have learned a few things. I like the challenge.

[snepp]

Originally Posted by Jasper70

Yes, it is harder. Mainly, the system (AI, gnomes rolling 20 sided dice, whatever the system is) is making far fewer mistakes and takes advantage of everyone of yours.

I'm 71 and a grouchy old man

Originally Posted by Pelican

At 71 we are allowed to be grouchy!

There's a lawn joke to be had here, but I'm much too mature at 45 to do something like that.


Now get off my forum.

[Edster007]

"It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”

-The late Jimmy Dugan, slugger of 58 fictitious homeruns in 1938

[Pelican]

"Crying?! Crying?! There's no crying in baseball!"