Development: Am I missing something?

[AZTarHeel]

Just upgraded to OOTP26. Loving it so far but I am new to the development upgrades.

I am seeing these boxes: Disable Player Development, Disable Player Development Lab, Disable Player Development Focus.

If I disable the lab and player focus but leave Player Development on, what do I need to worry about with my players?

I feel like I am missing something because I keep getting scouting reports mostly full of drops in ratings and potential ratings (about 70 percent). Thanks for any help folks can provide. Don't want to waste my top players and prospects because in all of my reading about development I missed something obvious.

I'll hang up and listen. Cheers!

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by AZTarHeel

Just upgraded to OOTP26. Loving it so far but I am new to the development upgrades.

I am seeing these boxes: Disable Player Development, Disable Player Development Lab, Disable Player Development Focus.

If I disable the lab and player focus but leave Player Development on, what do I need to worry about with my players?

I feel like I am missing something because I keep getting scouting reports mostly full of drops in ratings and potential ratings (about 70 percent). Thanks for any help folks can provide. Don't want to waste my top players and prospects because in all of my reading about development I missed something obvious.

I'll hang up and listen. Cheers!

Welcome back — you’ve skipped just enough versions that a few of the development toggles look like alien tech at first glance.


Quick rundown:
• Player Development is still the heartbeat — turn that off and everyone freezes in time.
• Player Development Lab is newer — it’s the “hands-on workshop” where you can assign up to 20 players to specific programs like Add Pitch or Improve Quality of Contact. Totally optional.
• Player Development Focus replaces the old hidden “coach dev tendencies.” It’s those little sliders (BABIP/Avoid K/Gap/Power/Eye/Running/Defense etc.) that let you shape how a player develops. If you disable it, the AI handles those allocations.
So: if you leave Player Development ON, you’re fine — players will still grow, age, peak, and decline normally. You’ll just be letting the AI steer the lab and focus sliders instead of doing it yourself.
The flood of “drops” in scouting reports is the part that trips everyone up. It’s usually not an apocalypse, just your scout re-grading after the upgrade. OOTP doesn’t show when he was wrong before, only when he’s changed his mind now. When you migrate versions or your scout finishes a big round of updates, you’ll often see a whole wave of down arrows at once.
If you want to smooth that out, bump your scouting frequency to monthly — that way the info drips in instead of hitting like a tidal wave.


TL;DR — keep Dev ON, don’t sweat the Lab/Focus unless you want to tinker, and remember that most “drops” are just your scout updating his spreadsheet after a couple of editions off.
(I had the same heart attack when I upgraded — thought my whole farm collapsed overnight. Turns out my scout just got new glasses.)

Personally I personally set the dev sliders for all of those in my organisation I care about! I don't leave them to the AI.

There are some good REDIT resources on dev guides one I think called player development megathread ?

[AZTarHeel]

Originally Posted by Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Welcome back — you’ve skipped just enough versions that a few of the development toggles look like alien tech at first glance.


Quick rundown:
• Player Development is still the heartbeat — turn that off and everyone freezes in time.
• Player Development Lab is newer — it’s the “hands-on workshop” where you can assign up to 20 players to specific programs like Add Pitch or Improve Quality of Contact. Totally optional.
• Player Development Focus replaces the old hidden “coach dev tendencies.” It’s those little sliders (BABIP/Avoid K/Gap/Power/Eye/Running/Defense etc.) that let you shape how a player develops. If you disable it, the AI handles those allocations.
So: if you leave Player Development ON, you’re fine — players will still grow, age, peak, and decline normally. You’ll just be letting the AI steer the lab and focus sliders instead of doing it yourself.
The flood of “drops” in scouting reports is the part that trips everyone up. It’s usually not an apocalypse, just your scout re-grading after the upgrade. OOTP doesn’t show when he was wrong before, only when he’s changed his mind now. When you migrate versions or your scout finishes a big round of updates, you’ll often see a whole wave of down arrows at once.
If you want to smooth that out, bump your scouting frequency to monthly — that way the info drips in instead of hitting like a tidal wave.


TL;DR — keep Dev ON, don’t sweat the Lab/Focus unless you want to tinker, and remember that most “drops” are just your scout updating his spreadsheet after a couple of editions off.
(I had the same heart attack when I upgraded — thought my whole farm collapsed overnight. Turns out my scout just got new glasses.)

Personally I personally set the dev sliders for all of those in my organisation I care about! I don't leave them to the AI.

There are some good REDIT resources on dev guides one I think called player development megathread ?

That's a massive help! Thank you. I actually began a whole new project with OOTP26, and in my first season (with a 1901 world with historical players/fictional teams) I am still getting lots of drops in ratings. But now I feel a little more confident in trying to tinker with things...

I will definitely hit up the reading material you suggested. Our team won the pennant in 1901, so at least something is working, right?

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by AZTarHeel

That's a massive help! Thank you. I actually began a whole new project with OOTP26, and in my first season (with a 1901 world with historical players/fictional teams) I am still getting lots of drops in ratings. But now I feel a little more confident in trying to tinker with things...

I will definitely hit up the reading material you suggested. Our team won the pennant in 1901, so at least something is working, right?

Glad this helped.
I maybe am not noticing as much the rating drops. I ensure that I invest in the best scout I can , and I favour a highly favor tool kind, so I know what that is going to entail overall. I know I'm going to get some swings and misses on the high ceiling types. I always max out my development budget, and I swing for the fences every 2 years during international free agent period and tghen cop that I will be penalised the next year for exceeding the international free agency cap the year prior.


I play historical-ish ( real players, and also international fictionals and with player recalc off, and just relying on personality, coaching and development and TCR ( i was doing 110 but have just bumped it up to 125 to see if that produces more ups and downs).

So I might get a well known player, but a) he's going into the draft, to a different coaching and development setup than historical, and b) may or may not end up better or worse than in real life with TCR and recalc-off settings.