Fundamental flaw in basic gameplay. (or "I *cannot* be alone in wanting to play this way.)

[Ben E Lou]

What I want to do seems like the most basic way to play a baseball sim for someone without a ton of time on their hands. It's the way we all played Baseball Mogul back in 1998, as it was the only way to play. It's the way we played OOTP in its earliest versions. For those of us who like football sims, it's the same basic way we played FOF before all of the game plan features were introduced.

I want to be the GM. Period.

I'll handle the draft, trades, free agency, and callups from AAA to the big club. AI, you handle the rest. I don't have time to figure out when my 19-year-old 2-star 2B is ready to be called up to Single-A. And honestly, I don't really even care. I just want to look at my Triple-A club and say "hey....that 24-year-old RF is almost ready, so I'm not going to offer an extension to my 34-year-old starting RF." I don't want to have to worry about the 100 or so players in AA, A, SS-A, and Rookie Ball.

In order to do this, the AI must manage my minors reasonably. It does not. I've tried two different ways of handling this, and both fail miserably:

1. Use ghost players, turn off AI signings. Just keep guys in minors who I want around. This doesn't work. In fact, I'd argue that it's just completely broken. When I do this, the AI simply fills the minor league rosters from the top down. "Hi there, Mr. 19-year-old third baseman. Sure, you'd be better served by being in Rookie Ball and we have no one playing 3rd base on the rookie team, but we need a backup 3B in AAA instead of ghost player, so you get to go to AAA to die." That stinks.

2. Do not use ghost players. If I don't use ghost players, the game forces me to either have the AI sign minor leaguers I don't want and who are blocking my drafted players ("Sorry, Mr. 23-year-old 3-star potential LF. I know you'd be better served in AA right now, but we signed a 29-year-old who has higher current ratings than you, and he's going to help us win the AA World Series!!!! You get to be his backup. No playing time for you unless he gets hurt!") or I turn AI signings off, in which case the game forces me to to sign never-will-be free agent crap just to fill the Short Season A roster. Both options stink.

In short, for a guy who wants to play at a high level, the game isn't working very well at all.

SUGGESTION: The AI has the access to know precisely where players "should" be in the minors. If possible, when the AI is managing the minors and ghost players are on, give priority to the highest-potential guys, putting them "where they belong," regardless of need elsewhere. This should be about developing players, not filling out rosters from the top down.

[darkcloud4579]

It's as if someone was reading my mind. Thanks for starting this conversation Ben.

[Bluenoser]

This topic is being discussed in this thread:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ing-again.html

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

This topic is being discussed in this thread:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ing-again.html

Not really. That thread has devolved into trying to get Markus to credit the hired Manager with the wins/losses/awards rather than the human GM. I don't care about who gets credit on the leader boards. I just want my minors handled correctly without me having to intervene. It's a very different discussion/issue.

[SandMan]

Because of this issue, I play with reserve rosters set to 30 rather than using the minor leagues. Players evolve and I don't have to have a bunch of useless players on the roster. This way I just GM the major league team and when I need to look at players to bring up to the majors they are all in one place. I am happy not having to worry about who is going to win my minor league championship....

[Matt Arnold]

I find the minors managers do a pretty good job overall of handling things. Maybe it's the way I handle things - I tend to only know a couple of my prospects at any point, and I don't think I realize if one of my medium prospects ends up stagnating and then bombing out.

[spleen1015]

This is definitely an area that needs work for sure.

Ben, did you know that you can force the AI to play players at certain positions? You can set this for each player on the Strategy screen. So, in your example, you can force the AI to play Mr. 23-year-old 3-star potential LF in LF in AA if you want.

EDIT - I make sure I do this with all of my prospects.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

1. Use ghost players, turn off AI signings. Just keep guys in minors who I want around. This doesn't work. In fact, I'd argue that it's just completely broken. When I do this, the AI simply fills the minor league rosters from the top down. "Hi there, Mr. 19-year-old third baseman. Sure, you'd be better served by being in Rookie Ball and we have no one playing 3rd base on the rookie team, but we need a backup 3B in AAA instead of ghost player, so you get to go to AAA to die." That stinks.

Could you explain this one a bit better? If you have ghost players on, the AI does not fill out minor league rosters (at least not visibly), by definition. It's not called upon nor supposed to do so. Moreover, I have not seen the game move up a guy from rookie level just to fill a position in AAA with ghost players on; else you would have all the non-ghost minor leaguers at AAA. I will look again tonight, but I don't think this is the case.

[JohnHoward]

SkyDog I have a lot of sympathy for your view, and I used to feel the same way, but now I have gotten so deeply into organizational managment that I do manage all the minor league rosters, set all the lineups and pitching rotations, and monitor progress on a game-by-game basis. I love it and only deviate from that when I am playing historical and using reserve rosters instead of minors. I think organizational immersion is even more rewarding than team immersion. It used to feel exhausting but no longer. Having said that, I really do understand what you are looking for and I agree that the AI is not there yet. But I'm telling you, if you try doing it ALL, runnign the entire organization, it is really fun and rewarding.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JohnHoward

SkyDog I have a lot of sympathy for your view, and I used to feel the same way, but now I have gotten so deeply into organizational managment that I do manage all the minor league rosters, set all the lineups and pitching rotations, and monitor progress on a game-by-game basis. I love it and only deviate from that when I am playing historical and using reserve rosters instead of minors. I think organizational immersion is even more rewarding than team immersion. It used to feel exhausting but no longer. Having said that, I really do understand what you are looking for and I agree that the AI is not there yet. But I'm telling you, if you try doing it ALL, runnign the entire organization, it is really fun and rewarding.

Hmmm...

I don't have time to figure out when my 19-year-old 2-star 2B is ready to be called up to Single-A. And honestly, I don't really even care. I just want to look at my Triple-A club and say "hey....that 24-year-old RF is almost ready, so I'm not going to offer an extension to my 34-year-old starting RF." I don't want to have to worry about the 100 or so players in AA, A, SS-A, and Rookie Ball.

Nope, this view hasn't changed in the 45 minutes since I made the original post. If I sit down to play OOTP for an hour, I want to complete a season or two in that time.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Hmmm...Nope, this view hasn't changed in the 45 minutes since I made the original post. If I sit down to play OOTP for an hour, I want to complete a season or two in that time.

Too bad I couldn't hire you to be my GM. I'm the complete opposite of you. I want nothing to do with being a GM. I let the AI handle all that. I lose a lot.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Could you explain this one a bit better? If you have ghost players on, the AI does not fill out minor league rosters (at least not visibly), by definition. It's not called upon nor supposed to do so. Moreover, I have not seen the game move up a guy from rookie level just to fill a position in AAA with ghost players on; else you would have all the non-ghost minor leaguers at AAA. I will look again tonight, but I don't think this is the case.

I have way more than just enough minor leaguers to fill out AAA, so the post above was a bit of an exaggeration. That said, when I turn on ghost players, it *always* fills from the top down; rookie ball and/or SS will be partially full, the higher levels all have 25 players, and inevitably there are tons of "down-arrows" in A, AA, and AAA.

[MooK881]

i am so confused...if you don't want to handle minors and all you care about is having some developing young talent...why don't you do what sandman said and play with reserve rosters?

especially since you would fill the entire minors with ghost players anyway except for a few prospects that you want to follow....

i think sandmans Idea is correct...use the reserve roster and you will have nothing to worry about. The players you like sit there and there is no extra headache for you to handle anything...or am i missing something

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I have way more than just enough minor leaguers to fill out AAA, so the post above was a bit of an exaggeration. That said, when I turn on ghost players, it *always* fills from the top down; rookie ball and/or SS will be partially full, the higher levels all have 25 players, and inevitably there are tons of "down-arrows" in A, AA, and AAA.

Well, now that you brought it up, I'm going to keep an eye on this. Hopefully you do exaggerate a bit. Thanks, 'Dog.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MooK881

i am so confused...if you don't want to handle minors and all you care about is having some developing young talent...why don't you do what sandman said and play with reserve rosters?

..because I *do* like to look back and see their history of how they progressed through the minors.

I just want to look at my Triple-A club and say "hey....that 24-year-old RF is almost ready, so I'm not going to offer an extension to my 34-year-old starting RF."

Beyond that, it's not unreasonable to ask that an existing feature would actually work, now is it? If the feature just did a decent job, there would be no need for workarounds.

[MooK881]

but if they are playing against ghost players...how are they progressing...its not like there was real competition right?

[phightin]

Not sure if this helps or not but I do also feel that the AI does a pretty decent job of handling the minors all things considered. I completely sympathize in that you can handle so much and have only so much time on your hands. I'll explain my strategy here and hopefully that helps.

1. I try to balance myself between being the GM of the team and the manager, simming out the large majority of games but playing a few along the way as well. For my majors I set up all the line-ups, rotations, and depth along with keeping an eye on strategy which I will delegate a large part to the manager. When I play out the games I only usually will control the substitutions, the strategy is for my manager to decide. I control all major league signings, trades, free agency, call-ups, the draft etc.

2. I build my minors mainly through my draft, I don't waste much time trying to cut a ton of players each season or sign guys that will be in AA. I may sign some guys that I need for depth for the majors and they'll end up in AAA but thats about it. I let the AI handle all the call-ups and demotions from rookie ball to triple AAA while I control the releasing of players throughout the entire organization. I find this works well for two reasons. First, as players progress through the years your natural draft selections grow and disperse to the levels where they usually belong with their ability and potential. The AI does a pretty good job of determining who is fit for AAA AA and so on. This also allows guys that may be highly regarded prospects or even hidden gems to progress well and fluidly in your minors. For instance as long as your minors are balanced enough that you have enough players that fit the level they're playing at AAA AA A etc then you should be fine.

3. I always try to balance the cycle of releasing players each year. This is where I think a lot of people get into trouble. They'll see some 27,28, 29 yearolds maybe even 30, 31 year olds in their minors "blocking" other players, flip out and release a ton of them a year. This is a huge mistake and really not what happens in real life where many players in the minors are in their late 20s or a bit older even. There's a reason why these guys are "blocking" your prospects and it's because they're not yet good enough with their current ratings to be playing over them yet. I find the AI does a good job with this as well. Even if this isnt the case on a rare occassion you have the ability to force the issue and control the level he's at yourself. What will happen however by releasing all these older players each year is that you get a ton of other guys in your organization being called up and then forced to play at levels they probably are not capable of...even your prospects.

What I do is I find a balance each year in that I will not release a ton of guys but instead about 10 a year depending on the situation. I base my decisions on overall age and potential, and sometimes organizational depth. I like to carry a lot of extra guys on my rookie team for two reasons 1. you get to see who the better players are by allowing the AI to decide who plays (which they usually get right) and 2 it allows me to get rid of the crap young players after 2-3 years who cant even manage to play down in rookie and short season ball. So in essence most of the guys I release are usually in their late minor league years or early ones. The guys in the middle will usually be the base of your minor league organization, much the way they are in real life.

I hope this helps a little bit solve your problem. Unfortunately OOTP does a good job of simulating a real life experience of a GM and there is a lot that it entails. Because of this if you take on a lot of responsibility in the game be prepared to put considerable time into it in order to be successful.

[QuikSand]

One more vote here for these additions to the game. Getting rid of micromanaging the minor leagues might get me back into playing OOTP again - I think the last PC version I bought was 9, have basically given up since then.

My interest is about as deep as SkyDog's -- I want to oversee the major league club, make the decisions around the fringes of minors/majors, and past that I'd just like to have some comfort that things are being run reasonably well.

[blueturf]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Could you explain this one a bit better? If you have ghost players on, the AI does not fill out minor league rosters (at least not visibly), by definition. It's not called upon nor supposed to do so. Moreover, I have not seen the game move up a guy from rookie level just to fill a position in AAA with ghost players on; else you would have all the non-ghost minor leaguers at AAA. I will look again tonight, but I don't think this is the case.

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I have way more than just enough minor leaguers to fill out AAA, so the post above was a bit of an exaggeration. That said, when I turn on ghost players, it *always* fills from the top down; rookie ball and/or SS will be partially full, the higher levels all have 25 players, and inevitably there are tons of "down-arrows" in A, AA, and AAA.

I think it is more of an issue that with Ghost Players the AI places the player at the level it feels their current ability is ready for. That means a middle reliever might get placed in AAA even if that level already has 14 other middle relievers. You could get a AAA roster of 18 pitchers a couple of hitters and a few Ghost Players. When Ghost Players are not used, the AI seems to assign players to minor league level based on relative ability, giving a balance team of 10-12 pitchers at each level.

I almost play exclusively with reserve rosters, but when I do play with minors, I have gone to using full minors in lieu of ghost players because of this problem.

[Le Grande Orange]

Ah, yes, the matter of more precisely defined 'roles' for the user. It's a topic that has been discussed before.

I'd say there are three specific roles: owner, general manager, and manager. Each role has its own set of challenges and responsibilities. The user should have the option of taking on only that role for their chosen club. For those who prefer more flexible arrangements, they could take on some or all of the aspects of those three roles.