Question: Free agent bidding

[DHS23]

[quote]Originally posted by sporr:
<strong>I think it's a good idea to be able to see what kinds of offers the player is getting from other teams. If it's done correctly, just because you are the high bidder doesn't mean the player wants to sign with you anyway.</strong><hr></blockquote>


My thoughts right there. Of course, Mike's suggestions are also pretty good. Either way would work out good.

Also, 30 days for spring training? How exactly is this going to be done?

[Old Man]

I like that some players want to play for a winner, very realistic. Would it be too hard to code in a player wanting to play for a team that would give him playing time? Like Minnesota has no 2B and signs Knoblauch to play there. Knoblauch does well and his value goes up.
Or a young player who wants to showcase themselves so they can get the big contract. Or a player who just had a poor year. Not the superstar types but mid-range players. These players can showcase themselves with a "losing" type team. That way not all the players are looking to play for winning teams as this is not realistic. These players will actually look under team weaknesses and want to play for one of those teams.

[General Mike]

I'd like to see some established veterans who may be coming off of a bad year, take a 1 year contract so they can prove that they are worth the money, like Juan Gonzales did.

[Henry]

c-man,

I like your idea.... taking the transaction and communications away from the computer screen and trying to simulate the real world through emails, etc.... I really like that idea !!

[BillyBuck]

Heaven's to Betsy! What a bunch of GREAT feedback on this thread. I agree that it would be somewhat of a minor "travesty" to know exactly what all teams are offering.

[biggamejrs]

[quote]Originally posted by c-man:
<strong>I would favor getting general, but not specific, information about other offers.

I wonder if the game could utilize the new "email" system and perhaps you get messages from players or agents responding to your offer. ie "We are interested in talking to you, x more dollars will put you in the ballpark." then they could come back and say "Detroit has just upped their offer, can you do any better? We're looking for x dollars"
perhaps you could even get messages from players specifically interested in playing for your team or getting you involved in negotiations.

then at the end maybe you could get messages that say, "the media is reporting that Giambi has flown to New York and will likely sign within a week..." or "it has been reported that x is getting a physical in Baltimore this weekend" this would be a kind of last warning. I think that should happen in a random period of time after the last offer, say between 2 and 7 days???

In general, I would always favor receiving "messages" that are more personal and human than having color coding or arrows or just looking at numbers. I think that would add a great deal of life and realism to the game.</strong><hr></blockquote>


i think this idea just blew my mind. This is the best idea IMHO in a thread of wonderful ideas. Markus, is this possible?

[Becks910]

I honestly do not think you can go wrong here. All of the ideas are terrific and they all make sense. I may just have to buy OOTP4

[Tresclub]

I think cman's idea is definitely on the right track.

[Markus Heinsohn]

[quote]Originally posted by Tresclub:
<strong>I think cman's idea is definitely on the right track.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I agree... sounds good! I'll try to incorporate that!

[blmeanie]

Sounds cool, but in many other posts, there is mention of closing as many other applications as possible to achieve speed for OOTP...I don't have an old machine but some still do, will this still be an issue with OOTP4? Without knowing too much about the messaging you are building into the game itself maybe it could be an option in the setup screen to which way it would notify you, through email or within the game.

blmeanie

[Scott Vibert]

meanie in the screenshots of Version 4 you'll see a envelop with a sign saying that you have x new messages... it appears that Markus has built in a sort of messager system within OOTP V4 to notify the players of certain things... so you shouldn't need to have anything else open.

Of course I don't have the game so I could be wrong..

CMan that sounds like a good idea.... I also agree that we shouldn't know the exact offer, however agents of course generally will say what the player is asking for and if the offered contract has exceeded what he's looking for they will mention around what the highest offer is trying to drive up the price. In that respect I liked the FOF model for free agency (and have posted to that effect in the past) where the top offer is reported, but often the other factors come into play and the player may not sign with the highest team. Free agency shouldn't be a strict auction.

[Kevin]

I also like c-man's ideas. The news section could also have "rumours" during the free agent period or "leaked" stories.

i.e. "Bobby Bonds was overheard at a local eatery last night saying that his son Barry has been approached by at least eight teams"

[sporr]

This may be too much for OOTP4, but it would also be nice to see incentive contracts. A player doesn't do well for you and you don't have to pay him as much. He has an MVP year and he gets paid accordingly. Then we have cases where a player's incentive is plate appearances and the ogre GM has him sit out the last month of the season so he doesn't go over. (I think this happened to R. Cedeno last year)

[SirRich]

I also love the e-mail idea. These are just a few of the thoughts that I had on the subject. I would like players to be rated in 3 or 4 categories such as:
Play for Winner:
Hometown Importance:
Loyalty:

The player would be rated between 1 and 3 for each category. 1 would be very important to the player and 3 would be very little importance. The financial offer would of course also be another component.

I would rank the offers using a score made up of these four components. For example lets look at the Hometown category. Let's say the player gets an offer from his home town team. The player (or agent) would assign points based on how important it was to the player. If he has rating for that attribute was:
1-A random score between 10 and 20 is assigned.
2-A random score between 5 and 15 is assigned.
3-A random score between 0 and 10 is assigned.
It is kind of like someone who smokes 5 packs a day, someone else smokes a pack a day, and the other does not smoke. All three people have a chance of getting lung cancer but the chances are different for all three.

With the randomness comes unpredictability but the rankings still have meaning. The other categories would have similar rankings. The financial offers might have to have something like 10 rankings so that an extremely good financial offer won't be beaten by a low offer. The player should also have a minimum demand before they even consider an offer. I personally believe that the finances should be the biggest component. Yes players take less money sometimes but it is usually not a lot less. (The points for the finances might range for 50 to 150). Anyway the four scores for the offer are added up for a total. The highest point total is considered the best offer.

Finally I think each day should be considered a round and the chances of players signing would increase each round. The score for the top offer could be compared to a minimum score needed for each round. The minimum score needed to sign would drop each round. In my opinion it should take a perfect set of circumstances for a player to sign in round 1 (close to a perfect score).

All this number crunching would be done in the background. If the player did not sign in the previous round and you bid on them you might get an email that they consider NY to have the best offer at around $3 Million per year for 3 years. In order for them to reconsider you offer you would have to increase your initial offer and the system would rescore your offer. If the system scores it higher than the initial offer and the score is above the minimum needed for that round he would sign with you the next round. If your offer was not one of the top 3 you might get an angry email which would cause a random negative score (-5 to -15) if you made another offer in the next round. If the player does not sign but my offer was considered the best I would like an email saying that my offer is the best at the current time but Anaheim and Chicago are very close. I could then decide if I want to up my offer to try to get my internal score higher and beat any counteroffers by other teams and also increase the chance the player will sign in the next round. I would also like the computer teams to occasionally make the decision to offer more even if they already have the best offer.

I hope this makes sense to someone else but I think all the random events would make it interesting but the ratings would also have meaning. I have rambled on long enough. Let me know if this makes sense to anyone.

[bigphesta]

I love the email idea. And DO NOT disclose acutal amounts. ballpark figures like "around 20 mil over 4 years" instead of saying specifically.

This is a little off the topic, but what about offering FA's team or player option years at the end of their contract?

[bigphesta]

Maybe even add no trade clauses where players with higher loyalty are more willing to sign with teams who offer a NTC

[Khaos]

I think you need to code in a Yankee team aspect where one team has a cable contract 5 times larger than everyone else and spends a ton to keep a winning team that attracts stars to it rather than anyone else.

[RugRatsGM]

If you implement this feature can you make it optional? Possibly a Enable/Disable buton on the setup page?

[sporr]

[quote]Originally posted by Khaos:
<strong>I think you need to code in a Yankee team aspect where one team has a cable contract 5 times larger than everyone else and spends a ton to keep a winning team that attracts stars to it rather than anyone else. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Or how about David Wells-type players who agree to a contract with you, then when the round is over you find that they've signed with someone else.

[Scott Vibert]

This is common sense, but still want to make sure it doesn't get forgotten.

The player must have the option at the beginning of a round to pull any offer made in any previous round.

Any offer a player makes and submits (a pop-up to confirm the offer and alert the player that the offer is now binding should be included) is binding and the player (user) would have to allow the AI(baseball player) at least one round to consider the offer. If the AI likes the contract and signs it, that's it... he's on your team, if you think that you screwed up and could have gotten the player cheaper... tough you made the contract offer, now you have to live with it, no weaseling your way out (This prevents the lets offer a player a contract to see if he'll accept, ok he accepted, now lets offer him a little bit less and see if he'll take that approach). When the contract is on the table as it is binding the money should come out of the money available for contracts pool, obviously it would be returned if the player pulled the offer during a later round. This will force the player (human user) to look at all of the available free agents and make a concious decision of who to offer his money to, rather than making offers to everyone just to see who will accept...

Just my half a cents worth.

Edit - one other things players during each round should either consider a contract (it's within an acceptable range of players goal or the current highest offer) accept the offer (it exceeds the goal and is of the highest value to the player (taking into account loyalty, play for a winner, etc.) ), or just flat reject the offer (offer is too far below the others to be considered). If an offer is rejected of course the monies that were tied up by the binding offer are no longer tied up and are returned to the available money for new contracts pool.

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: ScottVib ]</p>