Most Creative League Idea Contest

[Bristolduke]

The OOTP Champions League

A battle of the best leagues in the OOTP world. Everyone says their league has the best owners, well now is the time to prove it.

Each league enters 6 teams. Bring your team names, your logos, your parks. Obviously an owner can only come from one league. Your division will be your league name.

There is probably an upper limit to the number of leagues, but I'll base that on commitments.

Player pool is historical, neutralized, randomized to arrival with re-calc. Thus you know what the players are capable of at all times. So how good is the owner?

Teams will have 25-man roster and 15-man reserve. No worry about minors (you'll have enough to do).

No trading within the division (e.g. no trying to stack you a team or two within a league).

Financials will be the same across the board. So what ever park you bring the size will be set to a league standard size. Standard Market sizes, media contracts, ticket prices, etc. No arbitration. After the first year you will have to negotiate the contracts. No incentive contracts. 100% budget will be available. There will be a max cash. Actual numbers will be determined at setup.

Schedules will be based primarily on division play with some interdivision games. Top two teams per division make the playoffs. I'll customize the schedule once we know how many leagues are participating.

[Syxx34]

Where do we submit these? Can we just make the file, zip and you can view it via game. I have been creating this fictional league. However are a couple of twist that I will not mention.

[HerbD]

I have a league that I restart every time a new version of OOTP comes out just to see how the CPU handles it but I think it would make a great online league.

I call it the "No Expansion League" and I usually start in 1901 and rename the teams to what the eventually become in the modern age. I then sim clear through to around 2020(that will usually give me enough time for most of the modern players to retire with a few exceptions). I leave the league in it's original 2 league, 8 teams per format with the World Series as the only postseason series.

What I like most about this league is looking to see which great players from the past didn't make it with the limited roster spots available. This becomes particularly interesting around 1990 and later when there were so many players saturating the MLB. To put it in perspective you had 400 roster spots available pre-expansion where there are now 750 rosters spots available.

For teh purpose of an online league you'd probably want to sim up to a certain season and move on from there with the concept as it really doesn't have much effect pre-expansion.

[Jabs]

Originally Posted by RMc

I've enjoyed playing my Global League with 32 (fictional) national teams, complete with talent-appropriate feeder leagues (USA, Japan and Cuba get the best players; India and Phillipines not so much). The US has won 60 championships in 160 years.

Not all the best players are Americans, though: two of the top four players in all-time VORP are Frenchmen: Thierry Forest (818 HR) and Jean-Pierre Lefebvre (4,078 hits). And the all-time top pitcher is Pierluigi Bulgarini, winner of 310 games for Italy!

RMc.....as a few have already mentioned, this league sounds very interesting and would probably be a popular Quickstart option if it would be made available for download. Can you provide some additional details for your league? For example, do you have a separate feeder leagues for each country to get your talent-appropriate levels correct (meaning you would have your 1 main league with the national teams with 32 feeder leagues below that main league that feed each individual country)? What kind of financials do your use? I'm assuming there really isn't much to the financials as all players must play for their own national team. Do all feeder players simply go into the free agent pool after their high school/college years? Any additional details you could provide on this league would be greatly appreciated by many on here.

[Muzamba]

I've been trying to decide whether or not to submit an entry for this contest. Unfortunately, OOTP is not yet ready feature-wise to adequately handle my ultimate fictional league, so as much as I'd love to do that, it'll have to wait a few years. Now that the deadline is just a day away, I suppose I'll throw an idea ou there. (Nothing like waiting til the last minute, eh? )

What I ultimately decided to submit is similar to jmknpk2's Continental States League. The league would be known as the Interstate Baseball League. It is essentially an alternate universe where real-life American players represent their home state or territory, as opposed to random cities. (Originally, I had wanted to do this as a tournament format, but I think it could be just as captivating as a regular league.)

Here are some of the basics...

OOTP VERSION: OOTPX

STRUCTURE:

Eastern Conference
Northeast Division: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont
Atlantic Division: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, US Overseas (military bases), Virginia
Southeast Division: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Virgin Islands
Central Division: Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia

Western Conference
Midwest Division: Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin
Northwest Division: Kansas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming
Southwest Division: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah
Pacific Division: Alaska, American Samoa, California, Guam & Northern Mariana Islands, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington

MINORS: Minors will not be used, but each team will have a reserve roster.

LOCATIONS: Teams will play in their respective state/territory's capital city, unless a considerably larger and/or more centralized city is available.

STADIUMS: All stadiums will have equal factors and dimensions. (In fact, an attempt will be made to equalize all possible aspects of league play.)

GAME TIMEFRAME: Play will begin with the 2009 season and will run approximately 12 years.

REAL-LIFE TIMEFRAME I would start this league in January and run it through December, simming about one season per month.

FINANCIALS: Since players represent only their home state/territory, they would not be changing teams and would not be under contract. And since factors like market size and fan loyalty would be equalized, financials would be unnecessary and therefore turned off.

PLAYERS/PERSONNEL: Only American players/personnel and those from Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa are eligible, although certain foreign-born players would be eligible if they were born on US overseas military bases. Players and personnel represent the state/territory listed for their hometown and may not play for any other team. Therefore, trades and free agency will be disabled. A mix of real players (from the 2009 MLB Quickstart included in OOTPX) and game-generated fictional players will be used. For those states/territories without enough players in the MLB quickstart to fill out rosters, fictional players (with lower ratings) will be created for the initial season. For subsequent amateur drafts, fictional players will be generated with ratings appropriate to their state/territory's baseball level.

While market size/fan loyalty/cash/etc. would be even, states/territories will have varying baseball levels. This will help to ensure that states/territories which traditionally produce more baseball players in real life (CA, FL, TX, PR, etc.) generate more and better fictional players within the game.

RULES/OPTIONS: TBA

I will elaborate on and will probably solicit feedback on rules and options if this league concept is selected. I'd like to keep as much of this as realistic as possible, but I'd also like to utilize it as an opportunity to test out a few experimental concepts, so there might be a few minor differences between the ISBL and MLB rules/options. (Incidentally, I would be using alternate nationalities and ethnicities databases for this league, so it would be a good chance to see them in action.)

Anyway, that's the general idea. Questions and suggestions are welcome.

[RMc]

My Global League works like this: 32 national teams in the World League, and seven feeder leagues, which exist only to create players at age 18 (they play a very short schedule and the league kicks them out at age 21):

*USA Development League: two American teams, with PCMs of 1.1
*Level 5 Dev Lg: Cuba and Japan; PCMs of 1.0
*Level 4.2: DOM, VEN, KOR, plus another USA team; PCM .91
*Level 4.1: CAN, TPE, MEX, PUR; .87
*Level 4.0: AUS, PAN, NCA, another CUB team; .84
*Level 3: ITA, NED, RSA, CHN, ESP, BRA, COL, another JPN team; .73
*Level 2: CZE, IND, NGA, ARG, ANT, PHI, ENG, FRA, ISR, GER, RUS, SWE; .62

I actually start the universe in 1990, with the World League filled with lousy (PCM .1) players that quickly get replaced by feeder league players. After a dozen seasons, I erase the history and start things for real in 2001.

How exactly do I upload a quickstart?

[RMc]

As you can see, the top baseball nations get the best players, but not as many as you'd think...the 45 'superstars' in the World League (OVR 76-80) come from 20 different countries (out of possible 32), including 6 Americans, 5 Japanese, and 3 each from ANT, COL, CZE, BRA, ESP and AUS. (Interestingly, there are no superstars from Cuba; in fact, the Cuban roster has only two players above 70, and only 6 others above 60. A glitch in the system?)

[Jabs]

Thanks for the info RMc....I have just a few other questions for you. For your feeder leagues, do you just have 1 team per country as listed in your previous post? For example, your USA Developmental League would just have 2 teams in the league? Your Level 5 feeder would have just 1 Cuba team and 1 Japan team? Or do you have multiple teams for each country playing in a sub-division (say 4 USA teams for each sub-division for your USA Dev. Lg for a total of 8 teams)? Do you have financials turned off for your main league? Does your main league create a good bit of turnover taking the best players from their own country to play for the national team or will the AI hold onto their current players even if there are better ones in the FA pool?

I had started building a similar league to this one and just wanted to get a few ideas how you structured your league as I always seemed to run into a few roadblocks from completing the project.

I've never uploaded a quickstart, but I know others have loaded leagues onto PadresFan Mod site. You may try contacting him, and he may be able to help you out. Thanks again for sharing your ideas on your league.

[Tony M]

Originally Posted by RMc

My Global League works like this: 32 national teams in the World League, and seven feeder leagues, which exist only to create players at age 18 (they play a very short schedule and the league kicks them out at age 21):

*USA Development League: two American teams, with PCMs of 1.1
*Level 5 Dev Lg: Cuba and Japan; PCMs of 1.0
*Level 4.2: DOM, VEN, KOR, plus another USA team; PCM .91
*Level 4.1: CAN, TPE, MEX, PUR; .87
*Level 4.0: AUS, PAN, NCA, another CUB team; .84
*Level 3: ITA, NED, RSA, CHN, ESP, BRA, COL, another JPN team; .73
*Level 2: CZE, IND, NGA, ARG, ANT, PHI, ENG, FRA, ISR, GER, RUS, SWE; .62

I actually start the universe in 1990, with the World League filled with lousy (PCM .1) players that quickly get replaced by feeder league players. After a dozen seasons, I erase the history and start things for real in 2001.

How exactly do I upload a quickstart?

Originally Posted by RMc

As you can see, the top baseball nations get the best players, but not as many as you'd think...the 45 'superstars' in the World League (OVR 76-80) come from 20 different countries (out of possible 32), including 6 Americans, 5 Japanese, and 3 each from ANT, COL, CZE, BRA, ESP and AUS. (Interestingly, there are no superstars from Cuba; in fact, the Cuban roster has only two players above 70, and only 6 others above 60. A glitch in the system?)

There is a reason for this. The modifiers you can set on a feeder league (and I'm taking your use of feeder league to mean set as "Add College" or "Add HS" in setup rather than an age limited independent league) only affect the starting ratings for players, not their potentials...

I don't think this has changed in later patches, but all feeder leagues use the other modifiers that the major league has and have the same value. I have done a test where I created a four nation league (Albania, Andorra, American Samoa and Anguilla because I couldn't be bothered scrolling through the list) and set up four feeders with modifiers of 1, 0.75, 0.5 and 0.25 - simming several decades there was no real dominance.

I then re-did the league but altered the modifiers you can't see for the feeder leagues and set them to 1, 0.75, 0.5 and 0.25 and after simming for several decades there was much more obvious dominance from the team that had higher potentials.

I'll try to recreate the experiment this evening and post the results. I have previously asked for the other modifiers to be changeable in a feeder league (but not for proper minor leagues as they are more directly attached to the major league)

[f.montoya]

Extending the deadline until this weekend Sunday night 10pm EST. A decision will be made soon after that and announced.

[Jaxxvain]

My apologies for the formatting issues, this was cut and pasted from Word.

LEAGUE IDEA:
To create a unique league with an emphasis on the playoffs, and lots of teams making the playoffs (16 out of 22 teams). Think March Madness. I have noticed how boring it is in online leagues after the trade deadline, when your team is floundering along with little hope to make the playoffs. Also, borrowing a bit from another great online league, the World Baseball Hierarchy, I wanted to create some sort of relegation system to provide challenges for owners besides just making the playoffs. I wanted to provide rewards for building a consistent winner, while at the same time increasing advantages for poor teams, so they can eventually compete with the big boys.
Too often I think online leagues attempt to emulate the MLB, using its rules and ideas to promote competiveness that do not necessarily apply in an online sim league. In real life, I do not like the DH, but when OOTP generates so many players who don’t know which hand to put their glove on, and the AI insists on pinch hitting a player to sacrifice a runner over with a player who has a lower sac rating then the hot pitcher who was up to bat in the first place, well, in OOTP I like the DH.
In real life I like the wildcard, but would hate to see half the teams get in the playoffs, like the other major sports. In OOTP however, this is for fun, playoffs are fun, the more the merrier. In real life, injuries happen, in OOTP injuries always seem to happen too much, this is for fun, I am looking into getting an injury file that has only day-to-day type injuries, or perhaps only 3 day injuries or less. If not, I will just turn them off, they are too random, and have little to do with one’s GM’ing skills.

SIM SCHEDULE:
TBD, but nothing outside the norm here, probably 3 sims per week. One game week (maybe 10 days) per sim.

LEAGUE STRUCTURE:
The league will initially consist of 22 teams, randomly placed in 4 divisions within one sub league (see below). After the first season teams will be moved around to different divisions based on their Relegation Score (more on that below). During the regular season you will play 60 games within your division and 15 “rivalry” games against teams in other divisions for a total of a 75 game regular season.
1 sub league
4 divisions (team numbers below)
75 game season (60 games within division, plus 15 “rivalry” games)
The numbers in quotes represent the teams that will make up the “rivalry” games
The division games should be 30h/30a, series lengths are flexible, but with an effort to create the most “logical” and consistent as possible
The “rivalry” games will all be hosted by the team with the higher # (ex., team 22 will have all 15 home games, team 5 will host team 1 for 5 games, but be on the road against teams 10 and 16 for 5 games each)
Season starts April 1st
April = 30 division games
May = 15 rivalry games, then ASG on May 26th
June = remaining 30 division games
July will start playoffs

1st Division - The Crème of the Crop (3x20)
Team 1 “5,10,16” x5=15
Team 2 “6,11,17” x5=15
Team 3 “7,12,18” x5=15
Team 4 “8,13,19” x5=15

The Next Best Thing (4x15)
Team 5 “1,10,16” x5=15
Team 6 “2,11,17” x5=15
Team 7 “3,12,18” x5=15
Team 8 “4,13,19” x5=15
Team 9 “14,15,20,21,22” x3=15

The Muddled Middle (5x12)
Team 10 “1,5,16” x5=15
Team 11 “2,6,17” x5=15
Team 12 “3,7,18” x5=15
Team 13 “4,8,19” x5=15
Team 14 “9,15,20,21,22” x3=15
Team 15 “9,14,20,21,22” x3=15

The Bottomless Pit (6x10)
Team 16 “1,5,10” x5=15
Team 17 “2,6,11” x5=15
Team 18 “3,7,12” x5=15
Team 19 “4,8,13” x5=15
Team 20 “9,14,15,21,22” x3=15
Team 21 “9,14,15,20,22” x3=15
Team 22 “9,14,15,20,21” x3=15

THE PLAYOFFS:
The top 4 teams in each division will make the playoffs (bolded teams above). Teams will be promoted or relegated after each season, so they won’t always be making the playoffs. Playoffs are seeded by division, then by record within division, in other words, the 4th place team in the top division is the #4 seed and the top team in division 2 is the 5th seed. Using the custom playoff feature in OOTP9 we can set this up, however, after the first round the home team is the team with the best record (not playoff seed).
Each round of the playoffs will be 9 game series in a 4 home, 4 away, 1 home format. This is done to reward the better teams financially with extra playoff revenue. Remember that after the first round the home team will be the better record, not necessarily the higher seed.

RELEGATION SYSTEM:
Prior to each season the teams will be relegated/promoted based on a Relegation Score (RS). The Relegation Score will be determined by adding a team’s three previous Season Scores (SS). A Season Score will be determined by how many Relegation Points (RP) the team acquires for the season. The Relegation Points will be determined as follows:
(X of a possible 150) 2 RP per Regular Season Win
(X of a possible 20) 1 RP per Playoff Win
(X of a possible 15) 1 RP per Rivalry Wins
(X of a possible 10) 5 RP per article, max of two per season

With probable/possible point distribution below:
Min Avg Max
40 74 110 Regular Season Wins
0 10 20 Playoff Wins
0 7 15 Rivalry Wins
0 5 10 Articles

40 96 155 Total Season Score.
Note that because teams are playing 60 games with in their own division they have an opportunity to post a winning record in theory, and gain much needed Relegation Points towards their Season Score.

METHODS TO ESTABLISH PARITY:
In an effort to help the losing clubs get out of the Bottomless Pit, generate revenue, and get the necessary draft picks they need to improve their club the following ideas will be used:

Home Rivalry Games:
The worse your team is, the more home rivalry games you get, thus more revenue.

Draft Score
Draft Order will be based on Relegation Score (which factors 3 previous seasons as opposed to 1)

There will also be a Draft Modifier, to encourage teams at the higher levels to compete for first place, even though they are guaranteed, or strongly favored for a playoff spot (based on being in one of the top two divisions. 1st place in each of the top two divisions will get -50 applied to their Relegation Score to get their Draft Score, 2nd place -25, 3rd -10. (NOTE: The draft modifier may not be necessary to encourage teams not to tank at the higher levels; playoff seeding, revenue, and fame and fortune might be enough)

[f.montoya]

The winner is announced here!

Thanks for your entries! Great ideas guys!!