Combine Nonsense

[luckymann]

In a long history of poorly-executed, half-baked ideas in an otherwise great product, this Draft Combine has to be a new low for OOTP. I haven't had one save in which it works, and I have quite a few saves.

If it isn't the historical context whereby the thing doesn't work at all, then its how it overrides the disable FA creation setting and adds fictional draftees or its an inability to add players to the watchlist on the basis that it's full when it is in fact completely empty.

26 has been a fantastic release in my books but this shambolic piece of kaka is a blight on it and either needs to be scrapped or fixed pronto.

Cue the Kool-Aid kids.

G

[omg_pwnasaurus]

I've always only played historical with scouting off/dev on and when I heard there was a new combine, my hope was that for historical/scouting off it would basically affect CPU draft AI or something. Like if some player has a great combine, their draft stock would increase and they might be selected earlier or something. I dunno. I think it had potential but it is unusable for my choice of OOTP play which doesn't seem to be super niche or anything.

[szathkey]

I honestly have tried to chime in at any chance I've gotten to say something about it, but no one ever responds to me...or any threads about it for that matter.

I would love if the devs would at least address where fixing this BRAND NEW FEATURE was on their priority list. I'd feel a lot better with even a vague idea, but like I said, I've asked that in a few different threads and the devs always respond to everyone BUT me.

I've never been one to hop on the "Devs only care about PT" bandwagon because I've always been able to focus on the historical game being what I make of it...but I'm getting there the longer this issue drags on without a timeline.

With you on this issue 100%

[luckymann]

A feature, if you recall, that was one of the main selling points for 26, to which pretty much an entire Road to Release episode was dedicated.

[Brad K]

We need some Tesla owners here. You know, people accustomed to things not working as and when promised. LOL.

[szathkey]

I think my point is proven here...original post was 14 hours ago and no response.

They must not have an answer on what is causing the issues...

[md5423]

So when playing with the draft combine enabled, it will always generate extra draftees that otherwise wouldn't be a part of the draft class?

[OmahaBaseball]

Originally Posted by luckymann

A feature, if you recall, that was one of the main selling points for 26, to which pretty much an entire Road to Release episode was dedicated.

This is coming after the several months delay getting Pennant Mode (a primary announced feature) into the game for v25:

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=355850

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by md5423

So when playing with the draft combine enabled, it will always generate extra draftees that otherwise wouldn't be a part of the draft class?

Look, it is difficult to know exactly what is happening across the spectrum other than it is a monumental issue that has been posted about pretty much since release with no remediation given to this point by those supposedly in the know - who, in this case at least, don't seem to be.

I suspect the issues for historical saves are triggered by players having real-life stats associated with their in-game avatar.

In pure historical saves the combine - for me, at least, has not worked once. It just starts when it is supposed to without letting you do anything, without players being added. This irrespective of scouting accuracy settings and the like.

I just tried using it in a custom game featuring manually-imported historical players, again with real-life stats attached. Not only did it not let me add any players to the scout's watchlist, it overrode the setting disabling the creation of FA and added fictional players to the combine.

The only type of game I haven't tried it in yet is a purely fictional custom game, in which of course no players have real-life stats. I only have one such game and the Draft hasn't rolled around yet. From what I can gather from the posts, the thing works OK under these conditions but I don't know that for sure.

It is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle, surrounded by a mystery.

G

[SirMichaelJordan]

Has anyone provided any files to review? There are many ways to play the game, and until someone mentioned historical gameplay (which I don’t play), I was confused about the issues because they didn't exist in my save.

[szathkey]

I don't think the devs need files since it doesn't work in historical for anyone...but if they asked I'm sure they would have several volunteers

[Matt Arnold]

We should have a fix for the historical game issues in the next update. it was related to the way the game loads the players.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

We should have a fix for the historical game issues in the next update. it was related to the way the game loads the players.

Thanks Matt, will definitely keep at it with this until we are all on the same page because I feel it is a worthy feature that really complements the improvements to the overall draft experience.

G

[szathkey]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

We should have a fix for the historical game issues in the next update. it was related to the way the game loads the players.

Wonderful! Hopefully that correction will include manually imported players.

Appreciate the transparency...better now than never!

[omg_pwnasaurus]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

We should have a fix for the historical game issues in the next update. it was related to the way the game loads the players.

Thanks Matt. Will that still apply if scouting is off/100%?

[luckymann]

OK, forced to revisit this due to their still being a massive bug associated with applying the combine to historical games. In fact, I am now unsure if the bug has anything to do with the combine itself, or if its introduction into the code has triggered this separately.

Whatever the case, things seem to have been messed up between 25 and 26 in this regard.

The save in question already has its Draft Pool manually added. 150 players in there for a 6-round draft for 20 teams. So absolutely no need for any top-up, especially given I have told it to generate players only for the 6 rounds.

As you can see from the settings chosen here, the disable FA box is checked.

When the reveal rolls over and the Combine is selected, the game for whatever reason decides to just randomly populate the Draft Pool with a whole bunch of fictional players.

As a control, I went back to the day before the reveal and turned the combine OFF. When I rolled over, same thing - a whole bunch of unwanted fictional players.

Now, as I said at the outset, this is a fairly idiosyncratic save. It has been created not as a historical save but as a custom game. As I mentioned, I manually import the draftees. Historical rookies and random era are both unchecked. So perhaps it is the strangeness of this setup making the thing go hinky. Still, I do believe if you offer these contingencies then the features on offer should either cater for them or be turned off so they can't be selected.

Interested to hear if others are seeing the thing fixed with build 55. Or, indeed, if they can spot a problem singular to my situation here that could be causing this to happen.

G

[twins_34]

Here is one question, how is your game setup? Is everything historic or are you one of them people that turns off historical minor leagues and uses fictional minor leagues?

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by twins_34

Here is one question, how is your game setup? Is everything historic or are you one of them people that turns off historical minor leagues and uses fictional minor leagues?

The save in question is a fictional league setup using manually imported historical players with one minor league level attached.

Not really sure why that's relevant to this issue?

[kidd_05_u2]

You are telling the game to create players for 6 rounds of draft and then complaining because it creates players for 6 rounds of drafts?

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by kidd_05_u2

You are telling the game to create players for 6 rounds of draft and then complaining because it creates players for 6 rounds of drafts?

There's no NIL option here. Even if I chose generate for 1 round, which is the minimum available, that would still by your reasoning create 20 fictional players, when I have specifically told it I want zero.

In other words, it's beside the point. The non-creation of FA setting should override this and all other similar settings.

Again, I am willing to admit the odd nature of this save may well be the very cause of what I am experiencing. That doesn't mean there are some issues at play here. So far, nobody has stepped up with evidence to the contrary.

G