How Many Seasons Can You Play Before Burning Out?

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

I really don't find the actual managing in-game in OOTP to be very compelling, so even getting through Spring Training is kind of a chore for me. I couldn't imagine playing out every game.

See, once I figured out how to speed up the replay text, it's been all about the in-game managing for me. I've found that:

1) I enjoy it
2) I don't trust the stock computer manager to manage the team correctly
3) The player strategy settings are so tedious that I might as well just play the games, it might be faster!

I'm into my 4th season of the MLB Quickstart now, and I plan to switch to my first ever historical league once the real MLB season ends for my Red Sox. Never played OOTP before 12, so I have yet to reach my first burnout.

If I do burnout, it will probably be due to my mild OCD with respect to player development and evaluation. I keep a spreadsheet of every regular player on my roster, plus key prospects, and I load all interesting potential draft picks into the sheet as well. I then update ratings at the regular scouting periods, as I'm trying to learn how and when player ratings tend to change, as well as the relationship between scouting and the "true" editor ratings. That means I'm tracking current and past scouting and editor ratings every couple of months for most of my players, which slows things down a bit. I'm too worried about missing a diamond in the rough or a guy breaking through to a new talent level to stop, though.

EDIT - I should clarify. I am not switching from my MLB league to a historical league because of burnout, but because I have a particular Historical League concept that I want to execute. That concept is the entire reason that I turned to the OOTP franchise to begin with, when one of the competition's games left me wanting something better to use for the project going forward. I'm just using the MLB league to familiarize myself with OOTP and its intricacies, although I'm falling in love with some of my prospects to the point that I may go back-and-forth between the two leagues.

I may never burnout on this, but this is only my third month with the franchise, so there's no telling. I have already passed up on my annual purchase of NCAA Football because I want to devote all of my gaming time to OOTP, though, and that's a game I had bought for 4 of the last 6 years or so.

[Peterk]

Don't you find though that when you speed up the PBP, you lose a little bit of suspense during the game? That little pause right before you learn whether a ball is caught or not, or a home run or not? Granted it's not a big deal, but that's the reason I haven't done it yet.

I think burnout for me happens just because playing out the games gets quite repetitive after a few seasons. I burnout much faster on OOTP than I do in FM...I guess it's because there it feels more like you're watching an actual game (even with the 2D pucks).

...but that said, I was bored this weekend and ended up starting season 7 after all.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by mouse001

I have a small case of non-medical OCD. I can keep going and going and going with the "just this last thing..." ideal but at the same time I feel the need to set things up perfectly for the next time I'll play. I'll finish a series and it'll be the end of the month and *perfect* when I start again it's a whole new month and a new team to play. Then I usually come to the boards and waste time until life gets in the way. Maybe I should just keep playing...

What I always forget is now I can save a game mid progress. I'd always play it safe with my schedule in case you get wrapped in a 28 inning game with a pressing appointment. YOU NEVER KNOW

OCD ADD and OOTP are a dangerous mix.

[stevebydac]

Originally Posted by Peterk

A few people have mentioned having but not playing Football Manager in here.

Go for it. I got it back in 2007 and didn't know anything about soccer when I started playing...wasn't able to watch a full match without getting bored. After a couple of FM seasons, I became quite knowledgeable about the real sport (use Wikipedia to check up league rules when you're stumped), could discuss it intelligently, and absolutely love it now. It makes you realize that European soccer is just in a different league altogether from what we have in North America. Multiple tournaments and regular seasons all taking place together at the same time. It's quite dynamic.
England alone has over 520 pro soccer teams and in theory any two of those can meet for the English championship (FA Cup) in a given year.

I think the need for a break in OOTP becomes necessary simply because the regular season is so long. I'm actually physically tired after an OOTP season where I'm not with other games or other sports sims. I've been playing my seasons in about 3-4 weeks....40-50 games a week at 15 mins each...about 10-12 hours playing time.

My suggestion ... I'm copying a soccer league model of 26 games, one game home and away against each team in a 14 team subleague, then a championship 3-game series against the champ of a rival 2nd subleague. I play two games per OOTP-week. I've gotten thru 4 seasons and LOVE it!! First time I've gone with such a short season.

EVERY game is important. With 3 or 4 games left in the season there is usually a logjam of 5-6 teams still in the hunt for the subleague title.

Added benefit -- even if you build a superteam (as humans usually do in OOTP, even with house rules) you can go into a 3 or 4 game slump or suffer injuries and it can kill your season. So you are always stressed out, no matter how talented your team is.

You will NOT get bored with such a setup, trust me.

[Peterk]

Interesting idea doing a tournament style set-up.....not sure if it's still real baseball though without the big number of games.

Love the Tiante avatar. I just watched him throw Game 4 in the 1975 series this afternoon. Current Sox play is so depressing I ordered a bunch of DVDs of old games to watch 'til they start playing decent again.

[Chicagofan76]

Originally Posted by stevebydac

My suggestion ... I'm copying a soccer league model of 26 games, one game home and away against each team in a 14 team subleague, then a championship 3-game series against the champ of a rival 2nd subleague. I play two games per OOTP-week. I've gotten thru 4 seasons and LOVE it!! First time I've gone with such a short season.

EVERY game is important. With 3 or 4 games left in the season there is usually a logjam of 5-6 teams still in the hunt for the subleague title.

Added benefit -- even if you build a superteam (as humans usually do in OOTP, even with house rules) you can go into a 3 or 4 game slump or suffer injuries and it can kill your season. So you are always stressed out, no matter how talented your team is.

You will NOT get bored with such a setup, trust me.

I took this advice and made a NFL style league using GMO's 16 game schedule. I have the NFL and the EFL Endor Football League 15 man rosters, no roster callups, 15 man reserve roster, salary cap of 90 mil starting in 2000, might have to reduce it. This is for 11 i am gonna create a thread to see who wants it as a QS and i need people to make some logos and uniforms.

[stevebydac]

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

I took this advice and made a NFL style league using GMO's 16 game schedule. I have the NFL and the EFL Endor Football League 15 man rosters, no roster callups, 15 man reserve roster, salary cap of 90 mil starting in 2000, might have to reduce it. This is for 11 i am gonna create a thread to see who wants it as a QS and i need people to make some logos and uniforms.

Once winter hits and all of my outdoor chores go away, I'll try to build my setup into a quickstart for everyone. Give me until Dec/Jan and I'll probably have it all ready by then with the bugs ironed out. Unis, stadiums, financials, etc. for 28 teams with a 26 game schedule.

[prodgers]

The only time I didn't play out every game of a season was when I simmed from 1871 thru 2010 over night and then took over a team the next morning.
I've played countless seasons in several different leagues. My computer crashed last year and I lost all but one of those. I haven't burned out yet and hope I never do. This game is too much fun

[conception]

I managed all my games for exactly one season. It was a fun experience, and I tried to repeat it the next year but I just got impatient and gave it up for being able to sim a season in a couple days to find out how my players are going to do (I usually watch a game every couple of series to keep myself in touch with my team, and very often let the game play in the background while I actively work on another computer.

[ootpFox07]

I played almost 3 years with my solo league (v9->11) which started in 1910, simming mostly but really taking my time the last decade. At the end of the 2010 season I had to take a break and I've struggled to actually start regularly playing the 2011 season. I've had a couple false starts and keep petering out in May. Maybe once I've fully cleared some stuff off my plate I'll get back in though I feel now a completely new game is really what I need to get back in the groove.

[Mr. Baseball]

I don't get burned out. I'm like the energizer bunny, I just keep going, and going, and going.

I play out ever game of every season (unless my team is down 15-2 in the 6th, then i sim the rest). The best part of this game is making a league from scratch and watching the history develop. If you get bored easily, you never get too watch the history unfold.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by Peterk

Don't you find though that when you speed up the PBP, you lose a little bit of suspense during the game? That little pause right before you learn whether a ball is caught or not, or a home run or not? Granted it's not a big deal, but that's the reason I haven't done it yet.

Sure, but the suspense wasn't worth games taking 45-60 minutes instead of 5-10 minutes. That's a difference of 6-9 games in the same time period, which is vital when you put tons of time into player development/tracking, and you have real world obligations dragging on your time. Being more involved in the suspense in each manually played game doesn't help if I either can't play manually anymore due to the time, or it takes me 5 months to play 4 months of games. It really was going to be a game-breaker for me (because I don't trust the CPU manager and it takes hours to set all the different strategy screens, plus player strategies), until I found the instant PBP option.