How do people get seasons with 120-144 wins by a team and win the world series every year?

[JoelHD82]

A glitch? Cheating? Or is the simulation just that bad compared to real life baseball?

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by JoelHD82

A glitch? Cheating? Or is the simulation just that bad compared to real life baseball?

Simple math really.
If the NL began play in 1871 then we have 147 years of play to go off of.
In OOTP terms 147 year long simulations is an atom on the seam of a stitch of the baseball.
147 year long simulations get done every minute of every day 24/7/365
That has been going on for 20 years now.
That is hundreds of millions of seasons being simulated versus 147.

Once you think of it like that its easy to see why we have over the years seen almost anything that can happen actually happen.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by JoelHD82

A glitch? Cheating? Or is the simulation just that bad compared to real life baseball?

There are a lot of settings at your disposal. It isn't that hard to make it easy to take advantage of the AI trade logic. The game also tends to be easy for most veterans if they take over a large market team. A lot if us enjoy taking over small market teams in rebuild mode for the challenge.

As for "cheating"? Well that is a personal morality decision so one person's "cheat" is another person's valid strategy.

[Curve Ball Dave]

I'll let you know when it happens

[BirdWatcher]

I think there are certainly ways to consistently win, and probably win at rates that are unrealistic, in the game. I don't see that as a flaw in the game so much as just that the game is so customizable that there are certainly ways to stack things in your favor.

Also, depending upon settings and the type of game one plays, there are other built in advantages which are almost inevitable. For instance, playing an historic save it is awfully hard to un-know what you already know about players. So yes, playing my first historic save when I first purchased the game, taking over the Rockies at the beginning of their inaugural season, I did soon have them putting together a 3-year period with 116, 125, and then 116 wins again. This was with OOTP18 and I do believe that the AI is getting better and making it a bit more challenging to win consistently. For my money consistent winning gets uninteresting.
This is one of the primary reasons I have become more a fan of the fictional save.

As for winning the World Series every year, well, I doubt much of anyone has that experience. Even if you have great regular season after great regular season it is very difficult to win even back-to-back World Series, in my experience. During the 3-year period mentioned above, sure I won the World Series in the 125-win season. But the other two seasons my team lost to quite inferior teams in the League Division Series.

[malichai11]

Never stop building. Never play for now. Always trade aging superstars for young players. Be ruthless and non-sentimental. I might not win the most world series because I always play with market size of 1 and owner spending at 1, but I'll make the playoffs 95% of the time.

Once you have the game really figured out, you'll start coming up with your own house rules to challenge yourself. It really is the best game out there.

[JD396]

It really all depends on how you set the game up, and what you want to get out of it.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by malichai11

Be ruthless and non-sentimental.

That right there.

...or: Don't do anything I do in my dynasty, ever.

[TPinrose]

Originally Posted by JoelHD82

A glitch? Cheating? Or is the simulation just that bad compared to real life baseball?

Find an online league where you play against human beings rather than the AI. The only drawback is if you play games out, as online leagues do not.


The other thing about online is that almost all leagues now use Slack to stay in touch. So along with the game you get a social experience. Most leagues are happy to teach you the ins-and-outs.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by malichai11

Be ruthless and non-sentimental.

Right, definitely a good rule if your goal is to always win.

Me, I'd rather be ruthful and sentimental any day. Winning in OOTP always takes a back seat for me to seeing a good story play out.

[IanIachimoe]

I've won my share of WS, never came close to the win total.

play for the present while keeping your eye on the future.

manage every game, check the waiver wire daily. always try & add a prospect to a trade, etc.

[wallewalls]

Be a big market team...hoard assets...flip them for young controllable players who are in their primes...repeat

you can do a lot of things to fleece the AI or do things to give yourself an advantage that the AI wont do. the AI is pretty good, but they're not as smart as a human. the AI will hammer themselves with bad contracts after bad contracts and some teams will never be competitive over multiple decades because of that, meanwhile you the user can do whatever you want for the most part.

it;s not realistic, but if you play to win the world series every year, you can definitely find exploits. i was able to do things with the yankees and giants in my game in ootp 19 that i will never be able to do in my game this year with the marlins.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

Right, definitely a good rule if your goal is to always win.

Me, I'd rather be ruthful and sentimental any day. Winning in OOTP always takes a back seat for me to seeing a good story play out.

I always personally hate it when a guy has been with my team for like his whole career. He's a platoon bat at best, 38 already, and isn't willing to take less than 15M in free agency. It's like, "I want to keep you around. I really do. But I can't."

Like, I literally had one player in one of my games where I kept him around as a backup DH for like 2 years because he refused to retire, but wasn't good enough. I think one year he literally got 5 AB the whole season, but I had to keep him around because I couldn't part with him and see him retire with another team.

[Warhawk]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I always personally hate it when a guy has been with my team for like his whole career. He's a platoon bat at best, 38 already, and isn't willing to take less than 15M in free agency. It's like, "I want to keep you around. I really do. But I can't."



Like, I literally had one player in one of my games where I kept him around as a backup DH for like 2 years because he refused to retire, but wasn't good enough. I think one year he literally got 5 AB the whole season, but I had to keep him around because I couldn't part with him and see him retire with another team.

I mainly play historical and before this year I’d usually set it up with real retirement years but no missed seasons, and the number of players who randomly played a minor league game a decade after their careers properly ended is way too damn high. This time I turned off real retirement years, partly for that reason, and partly because it breaks my heart whenever Addie Joss “retires” in his prime.


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[JoelHD82]

ok well i notice at the top of the challenge mode leaderboards people are winning the world series year after year and having really high win totals that arent realistic.

[jimmysthebestcop]

Originally Posted by JoelHD82

ok well i notice at the top of the challenge mode leaderboards people are winning the world series year after year and having really high win totals that arent realistic.

Can you post some. Really curious. I can totally see it with a big market team. Where you have your players all hand picked and locked up for years. And if they drop you can eat the cash.

My last run in OOTP 19 was Oakland. Took me 3 years to build a dynasty. Think next 10 years lost 1 WS. But I don't ever remember winning more then like 105 games. Never even had an MVP. Cy Young's yes. But barely able to keep players more then 3 or 4 years cause Oaklands revenue was pegged at 29. It was just constant all star turnover. Maybe not superstars but basically all were all stars. Couple super star pitchers.

And pretty much had 100+ prospects above 3 stars after like the 4th or 5th year. And that was constant till I stopped playing.

I could see a top 5 budget team probably easily building a super team that destroys the regular season.

Think I got my budget up to 122 million once. Most of the time around 100-115 mil in Oakland with 10 was won.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by JoelHD82

ok well i notice at the top of the challenge mode leaderboards people are winning the world series year after year and having really high win totals that arent realistic.

Ah, well, I've never used Challenge Mode so I don't pay any attention to that sort of thing.
And I guess now you've given me one more reason not to.

[blazertaz13]

Personally I don't see how that is fun if you win every year. For me winning once every few years is reasonable.

Don't get me wrong I hate to lose, but I also hate when it seems that I am always winning (not that it ever happens).

[NoOne]

if you only play 1 playoff series to get a WS, then you can expect to win 85-90% or more at best -- even with 130-140win team, but each layer that gets reduced quite a bit, even at 90%. i have just 2 playoff series to win with a bye, so ~75-80% isn't too unusual. with that kind of %, you can go on some extended streaks for sure.

add a layer and down to 81% of the time... another and it's ~70%. obviously simplified... higher % against lower seeds and lower percentage later plus oddities of regular season and win totals etc etc... easier to see in hindsight and impossible to know for certain in the moment.

RL yankees win it ~25% of the time. that's insane if you think about it. 1/30th vs 1/4 -- at least since there's been 30 teams. it is 100% about money and market mixed with just an iota of competency -- that's enough to be a dynasty in the MLB.

the reason you can have long-term success in this video game is being able to do things you simply cannot do in RL. the rate of finding good players is very high at normal accuracy. knowing when best to find them helps. once you start winning you see that trading for a prospect with 1-2 years is far better return than the draft ever can be.

you can trade for future and not hurt your chances of re-signing and signing FA. in RL, they'd know you always trade at a certain age and you always avoid the 10/5 rule etc etc... it'd be very difficult to sign extensions and FA with that kind of reputation. if i touch a 10/5 season, it's because it's the last season of contract or i am willing to play it out and take the comp pick instead of trading. 90+% will be traded well before this point. trick is to do heavy trading when budgets are fat... i.e. before FA, but after season.

but, since it isn't a negative to behave this cutthroat with pixelized players, you can always be planning for future... always be making decisions for 3-5 years in advance, and eventualyl it's a never-ending cycle of amazing talent... most of which is extremely cheap for ~5 years. nearly all my injury replacements are superstar prospects in AA/AAA. 550k? no big deal to add to an already cheap payroll. a few days of mlb service are no big deal. if they can be an injury sub, they are less than 3 years away for certain, so even # of options isn't a problem.

heck, i even shorten club control in my leagues (6 years, not 7, and mil control shortened a year too). i still have no problems re-loading on talent. i also make sure to replace 1-2 batters and a pitcher or 2 nearly every single year (SP every other on average, maybe a fraction faster than that). i never have a case where i am replacing numerous major contributors. i usually have ~3 batters still developing at bottom of lineup, but still better than their 5-10M/year counterpart FAs at that skill level.

you can do this with any team. you just can't keep as many extensions/FA contracts at one time. you won't win as often as you can with NY or LA of course, but 105wins would be a year in which you have catastrophic injuries as opposed to a ~normal year.

it's possible if you have some disciplne in contacts and avoid painting yourself into corners that only have 1 choice... and that choice is usually horrible. a realistic assessment of talent is necessary too. some things work better than others, and any emotional attatchment to things that don't work as well should be severed. chalk it up to being wrong.. it happens. (era matters... 1871 isn't the same as 2019)

rate of change... know what you can keep up with and do it in perpetuity.. .this will be mostly dictated by your potential revenues, but being creative with the musical chairs of personnell is a big portion too. don't cling, dont reach, be realistic... stop listening to call-in sports radio shows... the stuff you hear in that kind of forum is exactly why your (includes mine) local team is horrible most years, lol.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by JoelHD82

ok well i notice at the top of the challenge mode leaderboards people are winning the world series year after year and having really high win totals that arent realistic.

Happens every year.