So what MIGHT OOTPBB22 have to offer ?

[BusterKing]

Originally Posted by Javaslinger

I just want the basics of what OOTP is to be improved.

Drafts that make sense...
Trades that make sense...
Free agent signings that make sense...
Player demotions and promotions that make sense...
Waivers and Rule 5 signings that make sense...

Maybe add an analytics budget? Not sure how to incorporate it...

More projection stats... Zips, PECOTA, and whatever else there is... I want ALL OF IT... Every stat that's ever been dreamed up.

9 posts in almost 19 years... Unbelievable!

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

Good God, man! Do you know how much ponies eat?!?!

Magical unicorn ponies live on sweet dreams and pixie dust. Very low upkeep.

[plinko83]

I also would love some additional give and take during FA negotiations. On the team side, our only leverage is to pull the deal.

I understand that players want and need to take their time and evaluate all offers, but I'm essentially being held hostage by a couple FA's who "favor my offer" but are sitting on it. I'd like to be able to tell them "yo, you've got 5 days and then i'm pulling this" or something like that. Essentially a "nudge" button or something that i could use once during the negotiation to attempt to move things along.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Javaslinger

I just want the basics of what OOTP is to be improved.

Drafts that make sense...
Trades that make sense...
Free agent signings that make sense...
Player demotions and promotions that make sense...
Waivers and Rule 5 signings that make sense...

Maybe add an analytics budget? Not sure how to incorporate it...

More projection stats... Zips, PECOTA, and whatever else there is... I want ALL OF IT... Every stat that's ever been dreamed up.

As a developer I see stuff like this and think "okay, this person doesn't actually want improvements, they just want to complain". Other than the projection stats thing, what in here is actionable? What does "drafts that make sense" actually mean?

[The_Offspring187]

I think it would be cool to have a "Bottom line" on the screen during playing out games that showed the out of town scoreboard and maybe recent transactions news as if you were watching a game on ESPN or another game network.

[Syd Thrift]

Since we don't seem to want to provide ideas on improving trade AI beyond "git gud", one thing I think would help with trades at least a little bit... don't constantly show what your prospective partner thinks of them. *Maybe* have that feedback from your own GM but you only hear from the other guy when you click on the "propose" button. If you lowball them enough then they might refuse to negotiate further and if you send then an offer which they accept but then you pull it back to offer something not as inviting, they also refuse to negotiate further (maybe for some time to come in fact). You could have individual relationships between GMs that go up when you conduct trades that help them and go down when you do stuff like this, or screw them over in deals, or (this might be a minor hit) when you pull a player off their waiver wire or draft someone they thought would fall to them. If a relationship falls below a certain threshold, that GM just plain won't deal with you, and if they're close, they'll only accept trades that they believe to be lopsided in your favor and so on.

On that note, one thing I've mentioned before that I'd love to see is the addition of the OOTP equivalent of "aggressive expansion" points from Europa Universalis. You do the stuff above enough, you take a hit to all of the GMs in your league, not just the person you're trying to screw over. If you're being a jerk, that kind of thing gets around. Another thing that might help with overall competitive balance but which has historical precedent is that you also get "AE" just for putting up good records. The classic example here are the Yankees in the 50s - there were offseasons where the only trade partners they could find were literal minor league teams, and even when they weren't actually being shut out of trades, they often only had the Philadelphia/Kansas City A's willing to deal with them.

[pgjocki]

My only concern is that you are proposing turning the game into an RPG instead of a baseball simulator/emulator.

I want trades to take into account payroll, fan interest, record, remaining schedule, and player ability. I just had a team in last place in their division trade their young Catcher in AAA with all options remaining for a Major League RP on an expiring contract. It just made no sense and I don't understand the coding logic that results in this transaction.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

My only concern is that you are proposing turning the game into an RPG instead of a baseball simulator/emulator.

I want trades to take into account payroll, fan interest, record, remaining schedule, and player ability. I just had a team in last place in their division trade their young Catcher in AAA with all options remaining for a Major League RP on an expiring contract. It just made no sense and I don't understand the coding logic that results in this transaction.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

One thing that might be useful, although I think it would be very exploitable, would be to have the AI “show its work” the way the Total War games and EU. You’d show something like this:

The GM would accept this trade: +10
———————————
Relief pitching is a big concern: +25
We don’t see a major league future for this catcher: +10
Catcher has all of his options remaining: -25

The advantage of that method would be that you could actually drill down and say “hey, you aren’t taking x into account” or “you’re over-compensating for Y”. On the other hand, you’re basically incentivizing people to drill a trade down until the AI literally just barely accepts, which is why I like my idea from a gameplay (and not just an RP) standpoint.

[Ace1234NY]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Since we don't seem to want to provide ideas on improving trade AI beyond "git gud", one thing I think would help with trades at least a little bit... don't constantly show what your prospective partner thinks of them. *Maybe* have that feedback from your own GM but you only hear from the other guy when you click on the "propose" button. If you lowball them enough then they might refuse to negotiate further and if you send then an offer which they accept but then you pull it back to offer something not as inviting, they also refuse to negotiate further (maybe for some time to come in fact). You could have individual relationships between GMs that go up when you conduct trades that help them and go down when you do stuff like this, or screw them over in deals, or (this might be a minor hit) when you pull a player off their waiver wire or draft someone they thought would fall to them. If a relationship falls below a certain threshold, that GM just plain won't deal with you, and if they're close, they'll only accept trades that they believe to be lopsided in your favor and so on.

On that note, one thing I've mentioned before that I'd love to see is the addition of the OOTP equivalent of "aggressive expansion" points from Europa Universalis. You do the stuff above enough, you take a hit to all of the GMs in your league, not just the person you're trying to screw over. If you're being a jerk, that kind of thing gets around. Another thing that might help with overall competitive balance but which has historical precedent is that you also get "AE" just for putting up good records. The classic example here are the Yankees in the 50s - there were offseasons where the only trade partners they could find were literal minor league teams, and even when they weren't actually being shut out of trades, they often only had the Philadelphia/Kansas City A's willing to deal with them.

I think the first half of this is really good actually, and would introduce some uncertainty into trade negotiations, much like with contract negotiations. The only thing is that the Assistant GM feedback would need to be much improved, because right now it's just not gonna give you any kind of idea most of the time due to how all over the place he/she is. A big plus to this addition would be that better Assistant GMs could give more accurate advice on the trades you want to propose, giving you a better chance to get a good deal and that would make the position actually mean something.

[Calvert98]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

My only concern is that you are proposing turning the game into an RPG instead of a baseball simulator/emulator.

I want trades to take into account payroll, fan interest, record, remaining schedule, and player ability. I just had a team in last place in their division trade their young Catcher in AAA with all options remaining for a Major League RP on an expiring contract. It just made no sense and I don't understand the coding logic that results in this transaction.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I have no issues with the GM relationship side being part RPG, as long as the actual game engine remains a simulator.

And to that, what you noted above on this trade - yea, 100% agree, that type of thing needs work.

-Cal

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Art Deco

Please please please add callups from the minors and MLB-to-minors demotions to the "Complete Transaction Log". In other words, any changes to an MLB active roster. Limit it to in-season, if possible.

Otherwise in order to determine who's been called up during the season I have to go through each team's transaction log, which is time-consuming.

In addition to this ^^^, I'd like to see in the player's Complete History panel display all of the callups, promotions, demotions, and anything that results in a player leaving or joining a team. Seems like there are too many times where I'm wondering how a player got from one team to another, and there's nothing in his history to indicate that...

In addition, I'd like to be able to see some sort of indication of whether the move was generated by the historical transactions file, vs OOTP AI, vs manual move by me. Near as I can tell...

10/31/1981: Was released by TEX
10/31/1981: Released by TEX

... the first one indicates a historical file transaction, whereas the 2nd one indicates where I've manually released the player. There is no entry, however, if I edit the player to facilitate the transaction. So maybe something like...

10/31/1981: Was released by TEX (h) = historical txn
10/31/1981: Was released by TEX (*) = gamer-initiated txn
10/31/1981: Was released by TEX (e) = gamer edited the player
10/31/1981: Was released by TEX = OOTP AI decision

Maybe those designations are asking too much. But it's at least be cool if all txns could be accounted for.

[Javaslinger]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

As a developer I see stuff like this and think "okay, this person doesn't actually want improvements, they just want to complain". Other than the projection stats thing, what in here is actionable? What does "drafts that make sense" actually mean?

Ah Syd, as a consumer I see posts like this and wonder if developers take much time to evaluate their product.

https://youtu.be/uNF1dKnO73U

This video includes a number of great suggestions, but I would direct your to a 9:45 time mark for 'specific examples' of what I'm referring to.

[Syd Thrift]

Coming in with specific examples is much more helpful, yes. I can say straight up as a developer if I get feedback from QA saying “x doesn’t work” without specifics telling me where it’s breaking and what it’s saying, I’m at the very least reaching out to QA to see how to replicate the issue and perhaps, if this is common, closing a ticket like that as too vague (if it gets that far, to be fair I’m usually contacting my lead or manager to advise that the tickets I’m getting are unfair). I’m sorry if that makes you mad but when people have spent literally hundreds of hours working on a block of code, one tends to see everything it does as purposeful and often you need specifics to demonstrate when it isn’t.

With a game like this where you often need to show trends and statistical probabilities rather than one-off issues, you often need straight up data to prove a point. “Git gud” is never going to incite change, no matter what you may think of the developers.

[Calvert98]

Agreed on the item of specific examples and with Syd's note as well.

For me, I play-out all of my games, and I do think OOTP needs to take the next step as I call it, with the in-game experience - the 3D etc... Perhaps even add something novel like an audio play call similar to what was done in the past with some older games (that was better executed than the Show's from what I gather).

I get we are mainly here for the simulation and management experience and this is not going to look like the "Show", I get that....

However, watching your GM moves play-out on the field, there is just something about that for a number of folks from what I gather. It is for me at least.

-Cal

[Javaslinger]

Another 'actionable' request would be to better facilitate play from two computers. Right now the only way I've found to do this is to sync the data directory on something like Google Drive. It works, but you have to 'save' the game. You can't 'resume' as you could if it was on the same computer.

Another request would be some generic options like 'minimal' data size where it would turn off facegen, baseball cards, only save logs, etc for human teams and so on. This would be a less intensive template for setups like above where you're syncing via online backup.

[dward1]

Originally Posted by The_Offspring187

I think it would be cool to have a "Bottom line" on the screen during playing out games that showed the out of town scoreboard and maybe recent transactions news as if you were watching a game on ESPN or another game network.

there is already an Out of Town Scoreboard option that is quite good...can be a bit tricky to turn on but in widgets it's in there

[The_Offspring187]

Originally Posted by dward1

there is already an Out of Town Scoreboard option that is quite good...can be a bit tricky to turn on but in widgets it's in there

I use it. But once the games are over they don't show the final scores on that Out of Town Scoreboard widget. It just shows games in progress and games that haven't started.

[itsmb8]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

One thing that might be useful, although I think it would be very exploitable, would be to have the AI “show its work” the way the Total War games and EU. You’d show something like this:

The GM would accept this trade: +10
———————————
Relief pitching is a big concern: +25
We don’t see a major league future for this catcher: +10
Catcher has all of his options remaining: -25

The advantage of that method would be that you could actually drill down and say “hey, you aren’t taking x into account” or “you’re over-compensating for Y”. On the other hand, you’re basically incentivizing people to drill a trade down until the AI literally just barely accepts, which is why I like my idea from a gameplay (and not just an RP) standpoint.

I think this method would be perfect if A) you didnt actually see the AI "formula" (on/off setting?) and B) the AI would subtract more and more points the longer it took to work out a deal.

For example, if the original proposal is A and B for X and Y, and you keep pressuring them to add more but then after 3-4 rejections you go back to A and B for X and Y, theres a decent chance that other GM says no and now wants you to give up a bit more. Anything that prevents you from gaming the system.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

I think this method would be perfect if A) you didnt actually see the AI "formula" (on/off setting?) and B) the AI would subtract more and more points the longer it took to work out a deal.

For example, if the original proposal is A and B for X and Y, and you keep pressuring them to add more but then after 3-4 rejections you go back to A and B for X and Y, theres a decent chance that other GM says no and now wants you to give up a bit more. Anything that prevents you from gaming the system.

to me, prt of the issue is the immediate feedback. You can just sit there and try everything until the AI accepts.

I much prefer the way FM does it....you have to make realistic offers and then wait for a decision. The AI should be able to negotiate that way. This way, trade talks take days, and aren't immediate. You can also inquire about players and the AI will either dismiss the offer or negotiate. But like I said, the feedback is over days and not immediate.

[Calvert98]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

to me, prt of the issue is the immediate feedback. You can just sit there and try everything until the AI accepts.

I much prefer the way FM does it....you have to make realistic offers and then wait for a decision. The AI should be able to negotiate that way. This way, trade talks take days, and aren't immediate. You can also inquire about players and the AI will either dismiss the offer or negotiate. But like I said, the feedback is over days and not immediate.

I like that idea.

Sometimes however, it does take a few days to get a response in OOTP. Actually, perhaps 50% or more of my "bigger" trades, tend to take a few days...that message "This might be enough...., but let me think about it". However, I often get that "No way....", then the counter proposal.

My trade setting is on Very Hard + favor prospects.

-Cal