Noob Starting Game: Where?

[tetonj]

As a middle schooler in the 80s, I fell in love with a baseball sim called "Radio Baseball," and have found no baseball game that I liked as much (age and nostalgia may play a part, admittedly). It made me a stat junkie, even if I suck at math, and a minor baseball history buff. It also made me dislike most console games, where stats played a minor role and strategy was an afterthought. Out Of The Park, which I only recently stumbled upon after seeing a post on Apple's website, seems to have potential as a suitable replacement. My question: What is the best way to jump right into the game and enjoy it while learning the intricacies of how to play? I understand baseball deeply, so it's not a matter of learning the stats, scheduling, etc, just a matter of learning this particular game. Personally, I'm inclined to start as an unemployed manager in a fictional league who gets hired with a minor league team so I can learn the mechanics of player management before having to tackle the financial issues of a GM. But maybe that's not the best way, and if so, tell me why. Mainly, I'm just looking for ideas from veterans that can help me and others like me really start enjoying the game as quickly as possible without getting overwhelmed. On a side note, I did skim the 500+ page manual, so I have a basic understanding of the interface and game mechanics.

[Curtis]

Welcome to another Mac gamer!

Skimming the manual is a good idea. You can't be expected to know all of it, but hopefully you now have an idea which section to look in to solve a particular problem.

Starting as a minor league manager is harder than you'd think, especially at the moment. (There's a bug which causes the AI to periodically reset your lineups and pitching rotation. It's being worked on.) Even in the best of times you have to deal with the parent club's GM stealing your players from you. They get promoted and demoted without warning, and if a few get injured you'll almost never have substitutes provided. You might end up playing two of your fifteen middle relievers at short and third. Really, this is for advanced play and people who are serving a penance.

My recommendation is to pick a small league (Korean, for example) and play without minors for a couple of sessions. Turn off financials, and other stuff like free agents, arbitration, scouts and coaches. Strip the game down to its most basic level — just you, your players and your opponents.

After you've gained some confidence with setting lineups, depth charts, pitching rotation and in-game management, kill the league and start over with one of the quickstarts that comes with the game, Fictional Single. Play that for a few sessions until you're comfortable, then try Fictional Five. By the time you've mastered that you should be ready to start creating your own 'dream' league with a good idea of which options you want turned on and which turned off.

And don't hestitate to check back in here if you have more questions.

Someone else will likely be along shortly to give you a different opinion.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Curtis

Someone else will likely be along shortly to give you a different opinion.

Yup. Nah, not really, everything Curtis said so far is sound.

Just to expand on one piece of advice: I would definitely start with one of the three Quick-Start Games that come standard with OOTP. These are:

1. Fictional Five Minor - "A 16-team fictional major league with five levels of minors. A nice, relatively uncomplicated league for someone who is ready to tackle a big league job with minor league responsibility, or for someone who wants to try managing in the minors."
2. Fictional Single - "A 16-team major league with no minors. The perfect game for a new manager to get his or her feet wet with Out of the Park Baseball 2007!"
3. Standard MAL - "A league with fictional players, but matching the real-world league structure of the major leagues. 30 major league teams, and sixteen levels of minors mean this quick-start is NOT for beginners!"

Better one of the first two, I guess, looking at the third description. Regardless, these quick-start games require little or no set up to dive in and enjoy. Don't forget the in-game help (F1) which replicates the manual, and the web site has two or three tutorials that you may want to view first. Enjoy!

[dwardzala]

If you need historical players to make the game more meaningful - I recommend the league set up stickied in the historical section. You might want to turn Free Agents and Trades off if you don't want to worry about those things, but that set up walks you through exactly how to set up a historical league.

I am just starting my first season with it (1970) and I am having a blast. It took 20 minutes to go through the process of setting it up.

[tetonj]

Based on the first couple of replies to my query, I started a fictional league with one minor league. It's based in Canada, so I did have to some "advanced mode" tweaking in the new game options instead of just a quick start. I am managing a major league team, but am not playing in commissioner mode. I just completed the draft, in which I focused more on defensive ratings and starting pitching based on posts in some other forums. I chose one minor league because I don't need to learn the basics of baseball strategy, but I do need to learn the basics of being a general manager. I figured one minor league team would let me tinker with developing players, contracts, and other tasks without being overwhelmed. I suspect I may only do this for a season, or part of a season, before moving to the full blown five game fictional or doing a historical league. (Although I'm a history buff and baseball fan, I don't have a major aching for playing out a historical sim season right now. I kind of like the unpredictability of a fictional league).

A few initial thoughts:

* Setting the league up was more entertaining than it should have been, maybe because I enjoyed scanning a map of Canada (I'm not Canadian, but do love the country in my various travels through it) to find cities in proximity to each other. The nickname generator is a bit too creative, however. I found myself changing quite a few of them that simply didn't make sense for a sports team anywhere outside of roller derby (the Overlords?)

* The draft was initially very, very daunting. Plus, my head scout confused me. He would recommend middle relievers in the first few rounds that were one star in both overall (?) and potential. I decided to go after specific positions, trying to find starters initially, and felt good about my picks, although I constantly wondered who the idiot really was -- me or the scout.

* Along with defense, I found myself looking at the intangibles of leadership and work ethic, and jumping on young players that would work hard or players ages 26-29 with good skills and great leadership. Was this stupid?

* In the late rounds, I found myself drafting for the AAA team: young players with potential. My scout was much more adept at finding these, by the way.

I think, for the benefit of future newbies, I'll post occasionally to this thread on my learning curve. I'd also be interested in hearing how others just starting are faring, especially if they are doing other paths such as historical or career games.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by tetonj

(Although I'm a history buff and baseball fan, I don't have a major aching for playing out a historical sim season right now. I kind of like the unpredictability of a fictional league).

Shhh. Me too. But you may start a debate.

Originally Posted by tetonj

* Setting the league up was more entertaining than it should have been,

That's because it sounds like it's a small league with only one minor league. Some people spend weeks setting up large game universes, and the workload can become tedious.

Originally Posted by tetonj

The nickname generator is a bit too creative, however. I found myself changing quite a few of them that simply didn't make sense for a sports team anywhere outside of roller derby (the Overlords?)

They're just random. Sometimes they can be pretty humorous.

Originally Posted by tetonj

I constantly wondered who the idiot really was -- me or the scout.

Only time will tell (no offense intended to you, of course ). Important - note your scout's ratings.

Originally Posted by tetonj

* Along with defense, I found myself looking at the intangibles of leadership and work ethic, and jumping on young players that would work hard or players ages 26-29 with good skills and great leadership. Was this stupid?

I hope not, as I would like to believe that work ethic, leadership, and the other personality traits have effects on player and team results. Knowing OOTP and its development standards, I would be willing to bet so.

Originally Posted by tetonj

* In the late rounds, I found myself drafting for the AAA team: young players with potential.

Sounds reasonable.

Originally Posted by tetonj

I think, for the benefit of future newbies, I'll post occasionally to this thread on my learning curve. I'd also be interested in hearing how others just starting are faring, especially if they are doing other paths such as historical or career games.

Good ideas. This forum is not just for Q & A, IMO, but sharing our learning experiences.

[tetonj]

Not the city, but my team I'm managing in my first fictional league. I am last in just about everything. I keep losing close games, and I've already done two major trades involving multiple 5 star, multi-million dollar players.

Needless to say, I'm having a great time. Which is partly the reason why I haven't been as diligent in posting to this forum -- too busy playing when I can, which means lots of late night games after a newborn goes to sleep, and when I should be sleeping as well.

I still consider myself a noobie to the game, so here are some observations and questions. I ask anyone with insight or comments to chime in. Note: These are after approx. 25 games of my first season. I generally play out each game in one pitch mode (pitch-by-pitch too time consuming).

* Stealing is exceptionally easy. Five of my guys are already lapping the league in steals. However, it only seems to work when I Run & Hit. If I do plain old "steal," the runner almost never leaves the bag.

* My pitchers are strike-out machines, with 3 of the 5 starters avg. 1+ K per inning. Two of those are 5 star pitchers, with experience, who have control ratings around 15 (in a 20 rating system), and other ratings over 10. But they also give up lots of runs, all with ERAs over 6.00. Why is this? My defenders are solid to great. They seem to dominate, then give it all up in one inning. Is it leadership? Coaching ratings? Work ethic? Or just dumb luck?

* Two of my so-called studs, who are 5 star vets, are dogs at the plate, with batting avg. hovering around .200 and 2-3 HRs. But my young prospects that are rated 1-2 stars (4-5 star potential) are doing well, hitting in the mid-.300s, stealing bases, and getting a multi-base hit or HR about once per game. Same question as for pitchers: why?

* I noticed that none of my field players had good leadership ratings, although 2-3 pitchers did. Does this impact team performance? Thinking it did, I went out and found a 20 rated leadership player who also filled other needs -- mainly my need for a reliable 2-3 spot hitter. It hasn't helped, however, especially in those close games my team always seems to lose. (I also discovered my first game play peeve, in that I couldn't look at leadership ratings in the player rosters. Instead, I had to click through each of the players. Am I missing something?)

* Morale is low, although almost all of the players are happy except for team performance. How quickly will this change if the team starts winning? Days? Weeks? Ditto for fan interest, which is only average right now (an attitude I see reflected in my game attendance, which sits about 5,000 people lower than when I play a road game).

* Scouting is a frustration. Initially, I had my scouts looking at all of the other teams, but lost track of who had been scouted. Additionally, these reports didn't seem to help me a lot, but maybe I'm not looking at them right. Now, I've simply decided to send the scouts to look at other countries for players. Am I hurting myself by not continually scouting my league? Are there other tasks that I am missing that need to be done? (I only have one minor league, by the way).

* Finally, contract extensions. I'm going to check the manual on this to see if I can divine more info, but how important are incentives as opposed to a basic salary? Also, how can I customize incentives, i.e. certain number of Ks or Ws for a pitcher? Right now, I only can choose an inning pitched incentive or the Outstanding Pitcher Award incentive. Both seem like poor incentives, especially for relievers.

[Nukester]

Originally Posted by tetonj

As a middle schooler in the 80s, I fell in love with a baseball sim called "Radio Baseball," and have found no baseball game that I liked as much (age and nostalgia may play a part, admittedly).

Wow, I honestly never heard anyone mention this game before. I remember it like it was yesterday......Walking into the only store in town that sold any type of computer games, and holding in one hand Radio Baseball, and holding in the other hand Microleague Baseball. I went with Microleague Baseball, if only because of the "awesome graphics!!"

How was that game ? Apparently you enjoyed it alot. Did it actually have some kind of speech ?

Welcome aboard with OOTP. Things sure have changed since back then

[injury log]

I'll echo Curtis' welcome to another Mac OOTPer! A few responses to your comments:

-it seems easy to rack up high SB totals when playing out games, if only because you can attempt to steal more often than normal. Run+Hit does seem to behave a bit strangely; the batter almost never seems to actually hit.

-as for your high-rated players, be careful about judging performance after only 25 games. It's not a big sample, and just like real life, some great players put up rubbish stats in the first quarter of the season- Johan Santana, for example, was pretty average over his first 8 starts or so last year, and Zambrano or Giambi this year... I've learned the hard way not to dismiss a high-rated starter after he puts up a 6.00 ERA over his first six starts (traded him, became a hall of famer). Now, it may be that your head scout is over-rating some of these guys; try scouting them with a couple of other scouts and see if they agree. They may also be in a slump (with the icecube next to their name), and that can take a while to break. I've read different philosophies on these boards about how to break a player out of a slump, some involving ouija boards and ritual sacrifice...

-it's fascinating to see what people value in OOTP; everyone seems to play the game differently. And one of the great things about the game is that there is no right way to play- it's nearly as complicated as real baseball, and no real-life GM has locked down a formula that wins them the Series each year. So there are no right answers. You're definitely putting a higher premium on Leadership than I do. The effect of the personality ratings is a bit of a mystery (and I prefer it that way), but my impression is that Leadership has an effect in the clubhouse, not on the field. High Leadership in the clubhouse should help your prospects develop, and help players play to their potential, but I don't think it helps you eke out a win in a close game. There's no way to see Personality ratings besides scrolling through each player; I think having Personality ratings in a drop-down display has been logged as a feature request, but I'm not sure.

-I think 'team performance' morale is based on the team's record, so a three-game win streak won't change much if you're ten games below .500. If you reach .500, you should see morale change fairly quickly.

-As for scouting, player ratings can change a fair bit over a season, so it's useful to scout your league at least once a year, so when you decide to make a trade, you have recent reports to look at. With only one level of minors, you could use one scout to constantly scout the Majors, one to constantly scout the Minors, and the rest could do other things (scout the draft, scout other nations, scout players when needed, scout another organization if you think you might want to trade with them in a month). You can gain a massive advantage by scouting nations with Excellent baseball quality- there are a lot of good prospects out there- though it can take a year or two before results really kick in. I find the advantage too extreme, actually, so I restrict myself to only signing international players 18 yrs old and under (and I end up signing almost nobody).

-With contract incentives, there is very little flexibility- innings and Best Pitcher awards, and no-trade clauses. Incentives certainly play a role in determining whether a player accepts your offer, but base salary seems much more important.

Hopefully someone else will give you a completely different point of view!

[tetonj]

A couple of good responses. Thanks to both, and some follow-up observations, answers and clarifications.

* Radio Baseball was amazing. Graphics were nil, pretty much OOTPB without the field, stadium and playing pictures. All of the graphics were in your head. However, it was stat heavy, had current and classic teams, and actually required you to understand and use legitimate strategy. Although, strangely enough, I vaguely remember stealing being exceptionally easy.

* Leadership: I figured that it was more for the clubhouse than the field, but in trying to figure out what is wrong with my team, the low leadership ratings were the most glaring common denominator. After upping my leadership quality, however, my team is still struggling. So I'll have to look elsewhere.

* Trading stars: Playing fantasy baseball in 2002, I cut a 23-year-old pitcher who struggled through April. Six months later, that pitcher -- named Barry Zito -- won the Cy Young. Hopefully, I learned my lesson on patience. Then again, I am actively shopping my highest rated players in OOTPB right now. Go figure.

* What are the ethics of exploiting a game flaw? This could be applied to stealing or scouting other nations (which I noticed has multiple posts in the main forum, and opinions are varied). In real life, if I'm an aggressive manager and steal a lot successfully, is this cheating or smart? Same for foreign players: if they are there for everyone to find, is it unfair to look for them just because the AI doesn't (even though it can)? I would argue the answer is only yes if it makes the game unrealistically easy to dominate, and then some self-imposed rules -- the 18-year-old minimum or, for stealing, maybe no Run & Hit -- as your personal tastes dictate (since we all probably know somebody who only enjoys a game if they absolutely dominate). Right now, however, unrealistic success is not my problem.

* Thanks for the tips on scouting and morale. I especially like the idea of devoting different scouts to different tasks. I'm guessing that, based on their various ratings, there are also certain scouts better utilized for league scouting and others for foreign scouting. The contract incentives seems like something that should be improved in future versions, to better reflect reality, although I could see (based on the scouting problems for AI) how it could pose a problem for AI.

* Finally, for anyone confused by my long posts -- since the time could be more logically used for playing the game -- I'm procrastinating at work and the game is on my home computer. I can't even imagine how little I'd get done in my job if I had OOTPB at work.

[Burgandy]

Originally Posted by tetonj

* Finally, for anyone confused by my long posts -- since the time could be more logically used for playing the game -- I'm procrastinating at work and the game is on my home computer. I can't even imagine how little I'd get done in my job if I had OOTPB at work.

This is exactly the way I do it, too. (Play at home, post at work) I'm new to the game also, and it's interesting to see how others do it different. My first experience was MicroLeague.. the original with all the 85 teams on it. Then there was some sort of update Then I got a newer version of MicroLeague years later and it was terrible. Maybe it was more operator error...I was about 12 years old at the time. I also got the 86 edition of strat-o-matic and ruined the dining room table with all the dimples left behind from rolling dice! Times have certainly changed since then.