New Feature - Playoff Fixture Editor

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Apologies for my ignorance, but what random debut change? I love me some random debut, and this won't affect my order status, as I've already pre-ordered.

15 will come with the ability to set the beginning and ending years from which you want your random debut players to be drawn from. For example, 1900-2013 or 1947-1977. I think this will vastly improve random debut. My main beef with this method of play has been the fact that pitchers from the 1800's tend to come in way too dominant.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by David Watts

15 will come with the ability to set the beginning and ending years from which you want your random debut players to be drawn from. For example, 1900-2013 or 1947-1977. I think this will vastly improve random debut. My main beef with this method of play has been the fact that pitchers from the 1800's tend to come in way too dominant.

Cool. I also find that defenders from the 1800s tend to make a ton of errors, even when playing with Neutralized Stats, which shouldn't be the case as the defender should be measured against players from his own era and then measured against other players in the game. I don't want to lose out on the 1800s guys though because I like to see guys from all eras of baseball in my universe. I just wish this could be polished up a bit. I have no idea how to do it, but it would be nice to have these guys truly neutralized across all eras. Sorry that this is off topic, but it's a peeve of mine.

[Le Grande Orange]

"Fixtures" is a European term. I suggest changing that to the terms more familiar to North Americans: "Schedules" and "Games".

So, for example, it'd be "Edit Playoff Schedules" and "Game 1", "Game 2", etc. (Or perhaps "Matchup 1", "Matchup 2" etc.)

[dim13]

Thank you for this addition !!

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

"Fixtures" is a European term.

That's what I was thinking, too. I check up on Australian Rules Football (go St. Kilda!), where the "fixtures" is the schedule and the "ladder" is the standings. "Schedule" or "match-ups" would be more appropriate for a predominantly North American audience.

[Sweed]

This is an outstanding addition to OOTP. I've never been bitten by any playoff irregularities but when I changed my long term game (imported from v4 all the way to v14, so yeah 10 real years invested) to the new 2 wildcard teams I was very afraid it might come up. No need to worry anymore

Way to go Markus!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

That's what I was thinking, too. I check up on Australian Rules Football (go St. Kilda!), where the "fixtures" is the schedule and the "ladder" is the standings.

From what I've seen, in European football "table" refers to the league standings. Which does make sense, as it is a table of the club records. But "standings" is what is commonly used 'round these parts.

[silvam14]

When I think of fixtures, I think of bath tubs, sinks, and what I'm sitting on right now.

[Tycobbler]

Originally Posted by silvam14

When I think of fixtures, I think of bath tubs, sinks, and what I'm sitting on right now.

Now that's funny lol

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by silvam14

When I think of fixtures, I think of bath tubs, sinks, and what I'm sitting on right now.

OK, you convinced me to rename it to "matchups".

[madJ]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

OK, you convinced me to rename it to "matchups".

You're giving in to those people who can't even spell "honour" correctly?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by madJ

You're giving in to those people who can't even spell "honour" correctly?

Well, yes. Nobody is perfect, I suppose

[shawa666]

Originally Posted by madJ

You're giving in to those people who can't even spell "honour" correctly?

We can spell honour correctly.

we still call it matchups.

- a canadian.

[GuruB]

It's an honor to be a customer of this game.......

[bwburke94]

Have you fixed the inconsistent spelling of "wild card" on the custom playoffs screen? It is not a proper noun, and is not supposed to be hyphenated. So "Wild Card", "Wild-Card", and "wild-card" are incorrect, except when referring to the Wild Card Standings on the standings screen.

[FunkyBike1]

Oh, hi bwburke. It seems you've found a new pet peeve.

[chucksabr]

OK, I'll be the fly in the ointment ...

What if I don't want an automatic tiebreaker game in case teams are level of record? Will I have the opportunity to uncheck that option?

[chucksabr]

So that I understand what is happening here, instead of plowing through the playoffs based on what the game thinks you want them to be seeded, does the game stop when it gets to the first round, allow you to review the seedings, and change any matchups you want to?

And if it does that, will it stop before each subsequent round and allow you to review matchups for those, too?

I ask because I am kicking around a League Cup idea, which might depend either on reseeding, or on random draws for subsequent rounds, running in the middle of the season during breaks in the regular season schedule.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

OK, I'll be the fly in the ointment ...

What if I don't want an automatic tiebreaker game in case teams are level of record? Will I have the opportunity to uncheck that option?

I haven't tested that yet, but there is a disable playoffs checkbox which might allow you to do that.

Originally Posted by chucksabr

So that I understand what is happening here, instead of plowing through the playoffs based on what the game thinks you want them to be seeded, does the game stop when it gets to the first round, allow you to review the seedings, and change any matchups you want to?

And if it does that, will it stop before each subsequent round and allow you to review matchups for those, too?

I ask because I am kicking around a League Cup idea, which might depend either on reseeding, or on random draws for subsequent rounds, running in the middle of the season during breaks in the regular season schedule.

It's up to you to stop the sim before the playoffs start. Otherwise it will run through the playoffs on its own. Selecting auto-play until playoffs begins works fine.

I couldn't find it on my own (I thought maybe it would just automatically popup which probably wouldn't be a good idea), but Markus pointed out that it's: "in the league setup, options tab, in the playoff options section."

You can definitely reschedule games inbetween rounds. I tested this and it works. I was even able to swap out a team that should have been in the final with the team it beat in the semis (pretend that it was found out that the winning team cheated). I changed the matchups before the start of all 3 rounds. I'm honestly quite impressed that it all worked.

I actually very much want to do a league cup in the middle of the season too (I envision a triple crown: regular season winner, post season winner, and middle of the season double elimination 3 game series winner), but I'm not sure we can do that through this. It seems like it might be an end of the regular season only type thing.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by kq76

I haven't tested that yet, but there is a disable playoffs checkbox which might allow you to do that.

Okay, so even with that box checked, it will still play a tie-breaking game (what I saw was a same division tie-break). Personally, I don't think I mind much, but I can imagine someone out there really not wanting there being a tie-breaking game. Think the sanctity of your 154 game season vs a 155 game season. I know I'm not the only person who thinks tie-breaking games should be counted as post-season games and not regular season games for the sake of records.

A bigger problem in my mind, though, is that there is no news about the regular season champs or the tie-breaking game. There should definitely be news about who had the best record in the regular season, especially if there are no playoffs. And whenever a tie-breaking game is necessary, there should be news about that too. If one was to write a recap of a season I think both would be mentioned.

EDIT: The regular season champs, when there are no playoffs, are listed in the history index and champions screens though (that's good in my mind). On the champions screen they're even listed as the "Round 3 Winners" when there were no rounds that year (that's not so good). I'd like to see separate listings (columns in the history index, n/a listed if no playoffs) for regular season and post season champs however.

I know, how many of us play leagues without playoffs, but for those that do there should be news. Playoffs or not, though, I think there should be news, as soon as the regular season ends, of who had the best record in the regular season.

Freaky Side Note: In this test league I was just thinking, "if this league were real it could really do with with some Quebec teams" and, no joke, simming into the off-season there was news of 2 expansion teams in, guess where: Montreal and Quebec City. How cool is that! OOTP reads minds now?