Looking for clarification on promotion and relegation.

[RevReese]

tldr:can i take a FL team to MLB, and is it automatic?


Hi all!, really new to the game and have a quick question that i cannot seem to find an answer to despite searching for one for ages.
I am using ALL leagues, started unemployed and plan on playing in the rookie leagues with the aim of working my way up (I ended up playing the Tri-City ValleyCats in the Frontier League).


Is it possible to take my team through promotion to the major leagues? and is this automatic at the end of season? I understand that you can set this to manual if you are in commissioner mode but i do not want to use it (challenge mode too with the possibility of being fired for extra fun!).


Also, is it possible to be relegated even lower than the Frontier League? (asking for a friend promise!



I have enabled the automatic promotion/relegation but do not know what leagues to put in the drop downs (set to None currently).



I am coming from Football Manager where i am playing a lower league club with the goal of climbing the leagues.


The problem is all i find are posts and videos of people saying that i need to be in commissioner mode and create fictional leagues, set the promotion/relegation to the correct higher and lower leagues and connect them all.
This seems a bit long winded, i want a game as realistic as i can make it, with real leagues, players and staff only.


I do have the All In One Pack 1.3 and the Complete Universe Facegen pack installed and working, so all real logos and uniforms should be present and correct.


I have completed the in game tutorials and am currently watching the official video tutorials, then i plan on moving on to lets plays to get a better feel for the game.
Sorry for the long, rambling post but it has been bugging me all day, if anyone could confirm for me that would be appreciated!

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and i hope you can clarify for me!

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by RevReese

tldr:can i take a FL team to MLB, and is it automatic?

It depends If you choose automatic P/R, it will be as long as you don't want to promote anyone other than the top finisher(s) in regular season play. There's a glitch/bug with finances so that you need to do some major surgery to teams' accounts after P/R if you choose any other teams (like the postseason tournament winner).

Originally Posted by RevReese

plan on playing in the rookie leagues with the aim of working my way up (I ended up playing the Tri-City ValleyCats in the Frontier League).

Be careful with your terminology as several kinds of leagues are not the same thing for OOTP purposes. The FL is an "independent league". People usually use "rookie league" to mean a minor league team affiliated to a major league team (you seem like you already know, but note that "minor league" teams in US ball are attached to a major league team that controls the players totally, deciding when to move them up or down, how much to pay, etc.

The international leagues are kind of a middle ground between the major league(s) and the independent leagues. Each league has a "reputation" (1-10) that influences how players choose where to play. Within each tier (Major, international, independent), the numbers show which league is more attractive to players and generally "better" (as shown in the player creation modifiers that generate better players for better leagues.

Hopefully that's not too confusing, but your question(s) depend on these categories.

Originally Posted by RevReese

Is it possible to take my team through promotion to the major leagues? and is this automatic at the end of season?

It depends Things are smoothest if you set it to automatic and let the game take the top/bottom team(s) in each league. And yes, you can have a team from the FL be promoted into one of the other independent leagues, like the Atlantic League, or relegated to the American Association, or whatever. You could theoretically promote into an international league or down into a different independent league, one member here does that with MLB and the Japanese league.

What you CAN'T do is promote minor league teams to major or independent leagues. Minor league teams (and high school/college "feeder" teams) are special creatures that don't have all the financial settings and features that major/international/independent teams have.

Originally Posted by RevReese

I understand that you can set this to manual if you are in commissioner mode but i do not want to use it (challenge mode too with the possibility of being fired for extra fun!).

DO NOT USE CHALLENGE MODE EVER!!!! Oftentimes games develop some little bug or a weird problem crops up that you could solve in two seconds in commissioner mode but completely ruins your game in challenge mode. Just don't. There's a checkbox that lets you say whether you want to be fire-able or not. You don't need Challenge Mode for anything and many games will end up ruined/abandoned because of some weird glitch or a mistake you make.

Originally Posted by RevReese

Also, is it possible to be relegated even lower than the Frontier League? (asking for a friend promise!

Again, it depends. You can link up all the independent leagues if you want, so Atlantic League teams relegate down to the FL and then to the AmAssn and so on and so on. It's actually a pretty logical way to set them up

Originally Posted by RevReese

I have enabled the automatic promotion/relegation but do not know what leagues to put in the drop downs (set to None currently).

Again, it's up to you After DO NOT USE CHALLENGE MODE EVER, my strongest recommendation is: make a test game, quickly, don't worry about logos or rules or whatever. Just set the P/R as you want and simulate a whole season and see what happens!

Originally Posted by RevReese

I am coming from Football Manager where i am playing a lower league club with the goal of climbing the leagues. The problem is all i find are posts and videos of people saying that i need to be in commissioner mode and create fictional leagues, set the promotion/relegation to the correct higher and lower leagues and connect them all.

Well yes, IMO that would work better. I deleted all the real leagues and made fictional leagues and had fantasy drafts for each one. But linking up the major/independent leagues works OK. Most importantly if YOU have fun, it's working! I once started a fictional game and managed the rookie level minor league team, then the single A team, then the double a team, etc., and it was a fabulous time and pretty interesting.

Originally Posted by RevReese

This seems a bit long winded, i want a game as realistic as i can make it, with real leagues, players and staff only.

Well, good luck with that there are rules and aspects of baseball that are different or abstracted in OOTP, so you'll have to learn to live with what you can't change exactly to your tastes.

Originally Posted by RevReese

I do have the All In One Pack 1.3 and the Complete Universe Facegen pack installed and working, so all real logos and uniforms should be present and correct.

I don't practice what I preach but try not to fiddle too much with those things until you're sure your game concept works.

Originally Posted by RevReese

I have completed the in game tutorials and am currently watching the official video tutorials, then i plan on moving on to lets plays to get a better feel for the game.appreciated!

That's all fine, but you seem ready to jump in and start playing (again, after you test some!).

Originally Posted by RevReese

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and i hope you can clarify for me!

Good luck, and my third commandment is: save often! You may or may not have crash problems but it will be frustrating if you lose too much work at once. I have a very old computer but I set all my games to save "daily" (i.e. within the game world, every time you advance a day). You'll get used to the slightly longer simulation time and you'll never lose too much progress.

[RevReese]

Hey BBGiovanni, thank you so much for taking the time to post an extremely helpful reply!
I can't thank you enough for your advice and will be starting a new game today while bearing in mind what you have told me.

My apologies for mixing up the terminology, it goes to show how much of a newbie i am! just checking my game and it does of course say Independent so i don't know how i got mixed up.
I really thought playing with commissioner mode off and challenge on was the ultimate challenge, now i know why every youtuber i have watched leaves it on!

I have learned a lot here thanks to you and will take that into my new game starting right now.
The community here seems very friendly and helpful, i was a little concerned about posting such a trivial question (when i got around to actually asking it!) but i am certainly glad i did and hope my post and your answers will help others with similar issues.
Thanks again!

[Pelican]

In this, as in so many things OOTP, there is learning curve (accelerated with this kind of helpful advice) before you get to ideally where you want to be. Some new users have issues with that, which is understandable, because they don’t have the time or inclination to work with the game. I personally think it’s fantastic that the game has so many capabilities; but it does require patience, lots of saves, and probably some do-overs. I am now two-plus years in, and still have a lot to learn, but still enjoying it and getting better at it (even though at times it feels like two steps forward, one step backwards).

[RevReese]

Yeah, i just restarted taking into account BBGiovanni's advice above and things seem to be going fine so far.
I have been learning a lot about the sim, and still have a lot more to learn!


If i find it fun already just looking at player's stats, i can only imagine how much fun it will be when i actually start playing properly!