Does anyone here actually enjoy playing offline mode?

[naturaldopamine]

How is this fun?



And this is after severely handicapping myself to make it as hard as I possibly could. I set the trade difficulty to Very Hard and heavily favored prospects. I activated the Rule 5 draft but refused to participate in it. I only traded for guys who were either equivalent or rated lower in potential. I put very strict contract extension regulations on myself. Yet this still happens.....



If I had not put trade/Rule5 handicaps on myself I could've won 130 games a year. How far must the handicapping go? No more trades? No more IFA's? No more first round picks? No more free agent signings? This all started when I signed Ruiz in free agency after year 1.............



And I felt dirty signing him since he was the #3 prospect at the time. I should've entered into Commissioner Mode and put him back on the original team..... but that ALSO ruins the immersion.














The developers just need to fix the broken AI. We have been asking them for years; the AI absolutely refuses to protect their best players/prospects and it makes the game unplayable offline. Even with garbage teams it's just too easy to dominate after year 2 or 3 with all the free prospects you can find in the free agency pool & rule 5 draft.

I am done with offline leagues; they just are not fun. This Braves team was a monster and they weren't going anywhere. They were extremely young with a top 5 farm system. Heck even my AAA team could've put up decent numbers in the MLB.....





Please fix the AI. Trade AI, Rule 5 AI, waiver wire AI, free agent AI, owner goal AI, trade proposal AI, contract extension AI.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

I enjoy it a ton.

[MizzouRah]

Love offline and I'm having a blast with my MLB fictional universe.

[tward13]

Yep. It's fun.

[tehsuigi]

If you're not playing to win and just goofing around with alternate universes or to find the storylines that the game unfolds, it's fun. I think of offline mode as a sandbox instead of a series competition.

[AESP_pres]

Sure do, never played online league or PT since I bought OOTP2007. I always play historical with real trade so there is no way that I have an advantage.

[MikeS21]

I only play off-line. I simply am not an online multi-player person. Tried it once and hated it.

I don't see all the issues you refer to. I have taken teams who were bad and in three or four years, turn them into contenders. Isn't that what the game is about?

I do have a question. Do you play out your games or do you sim portions of your season?

I find that if I sim several weeks, my teams rack up many more wins than if I play out the games. My players (especially starting pitchers) put up far better stats during a month of sims, than they do during a month of actual game play. For some reason, simming seem to lead to many longer winning streaks, hitting streaks, etc. I don't see them as often when games are actually being played out.

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, I too have a lot of fun with the base game and really don't play the "online" modes at all. I think the main key is to consider OOTP more of a toy than a game: it's not necessarily going to be all that competitive unless you handicap yourself or do other things to the league to make your job harder.

Making the AI better is and should be an issue going forward. I feel like a lot of the problem with "make the AI better" is that we all know it's not good but it's often hard to quantify exactly how it's not good. "It allows itself to get fleeced in trades" isn't really helpful; we need to figure out exactly how it allows itself to get fleeced.

One thing I'd like to see is for teams, players especially, to pick up reputations throughout the league a la "bad boy" points in EU4 (maybe that was EU3?). Every time you interact with another GM about a trade, you pick up points. Perhaps it's a small amount but I feel like the biggest reason why trades are so unbalanced is that you can start with the other GM saying "no, that's crazy!" and then slowly add more and more talent until you get the other side to the absolute lowest threshold to agree. When real life GMs do this, other GMs don't want to deal with them. There should be very little you can do to get rid of this reputation except allowing it to go down over time.

As for the effect... with every point of negative reputation, trade difficulty becomes incrementally harder. It's a small effect at first but imagine burning so many bridges that the only way other teams will deal with you is if they think they're making out like bandits. Like, say, if you get a bad enough rep, teams might overvalue their own players relative to yours by 100% or more. And probably if you reach a high enough rep, teams will not want to deal with you, period.

The other thing that could be done, either in addition to the above or instead of it, is to add an extra "send offer" button that gets the other GM's opinion. You get a fixed number of those - let's say 3 - and then the GM's not going to want to trade with you at all for, say, a month. I feel like that's just going to cause players to cheese the AI once a month instead of constantly so I feel like you still need "bad boy points" but it would also be a start.

Actually, even if you allowed the same unlimited trading thing but used "bad boy points" (or whatever you want to call them) in conjunction with the "ask the AI if this works" button, you could achieve the effect as well. I imagine, too, that once you put it in people will begin to complain to high heaven that nobody wants to trade with them after they tried to cheese the first AI GM they talked to too hard, but them's the breaks...

[The Yurpman]

So you're upset that one of the youngest, most talented teams IRL are...becoming talented and winning games in your sim? I'm confused.Most of your players are on the Braves in real life and are very highly touted. Start a game with the Orioles and show me these same records and then we can talk about the game needing improvement.

[naturaldopamine]

How do y'all not completely dominate? The game is just way too easy with all of the problems with the AI not protecting their good players/specs. Even after placing some very strict self-inflicted regulations on myself I still finished in first place for 10 straight seasons - and it would've been another 10 years straight considering how young my team was and how dominant my farm was.

I just want a challenge - and that is why I can only play in online leagues against 29 other competent GMs makes for a VERY challenging league & it is truly impressive just making it to the postseason.

The developers need to alter the AI to protect their top players/specs. Any prospect over 50 potential should be 100% protected from entering free agency or the Rule 5 - no excuses.

[DJ_Jak_32]

Only way I play and enjoy it thoroughly. You are leaving out a ton of info on your league....what settings do you play on? Roster limits? Trade difficulty? Scout accuracy? Do you play in Commish Mode? Have you ever tried playing Challenge mode? Lets see you do that with the same results, I bet you will be back here complaining that it is too hard.

Or maybe you should apply to be a real GM if you are so good......my Mets need help.

[TomVeal]

Unless man-decades of analysis and mega-hours of computer time have been devoted to a game with relatively simple rules (chess, checkers, backgammon - go is apparently still too much of a challenge), AI will be barely competent at best. I've played plenty of computer games that any human can win the first time he plays.

If someone will donate a few tens of millions of dollars to OOTP, it will doubtless be able to bring the AI up to the "average Division III college manager" level.

[naturaldopamine]

Originally Posted by DJ_Jak_32

Only way I play and enjoy it thoroughly. You are leaving out a ton of info on your league....what settings do you play on? Do you play in Commish Mode? Have you ever tried playing Challenge mode? Lets see you do that with the same results, I bet you will be back here complaining that it is too hard.

Standard settings. 20-80 ratings. Very hard trading, highly favor prospects, no rule 5 picks, no contract extensions until year 3, no trading for someone of greater potential, etc.



Also - playing with teams like the O's is even easier. Not only do you get the top pick in every amateur/Rule5 draft - you get top waiver wire priority & with the way the AI never protects their elite specs you can dominate after year 4 and never finish in 2nd place again.

[quillenl]

1. Challenge Mode is not any harder. You can set up your league to be significantly harder than the default of Challenge Mode.

2. I would be very interested in a seriously challenging Online League. I have been in a few, and regardless of the attempts to make it otherwise it becomes a game of who can tank best. Nothing is as frustrating to me as trying to win only to realize you will end up losing to guys who simply are NOT trying to win 3 out of every 10 seasons. That's why I enjoy Offline... at least I know each other AI team is putting the best team on the field their limited AI can.

Personally, I have a crap ton of house rules in place in my offline leagues and I still feel like I have a huge advantage so I get it. If you want to cheat the system in offline you can and no amount of house rules will prevent it.

At the end of the day it's a casual game that can be played offline or online in an almost unlimited number of ways. May as well ask how people can really enjoy playing with historical players? With Minors? With Scouting turned off? Different folks are going to like different things and this game can be played as a number of completely different experiences depending on what people are looking for,

[dward1]

yes of course it is preposterously easy. you have to handicap yourself financially to a massive extent to make the game any kind of challenge, even then trades/free agent signings of cheap players make it quite easy to win.

[andyhdz]

Try the pro/rel quick start league and begin at the bottom. If you try and tank and you finish too low you're sent down and all your best players bail. Have fun.

[quillenl]

I hope to dear baby sweet Jesus that no one actually tanks playing off line mode. If you absolutely must have an early pick in an offline league and can't figure out how to swipe one from the AI...

you can just give yourself one in commish mode. It's a solo league. If you are going to cheat when you are playing solo (if that is even cheating) own it and do it with style!

If you are playing Challenge Mode... you better just learn how to fleece the AI. Much less time consuming than tanking

[naturaldopamine]

What house rules do y'all use? If I ever played an offline league again I would probably play in commissioner mode just to ensure that all of the best players/specs were protected

how incredibly tedious though

[Ty Cobb]

I (shameless plug alert!) designed a mixed real and fictional league for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and I'm kicking around expanding it. What's the challenge? Take the worst team in the league, run it up till you wins a WS. Then quit and start over again with the worst team. A big part of my enjoyment has come in starting to go to the towns I put teams in. Just Sunday, Mrs. Cobb and I went to Grand Marais (Lake Superior shoreline town) for the first time. It was breathtaking, and the sunset incredible. That trip helped me to connect my real life with my fantasy league...made it more alive.

Bottom line in my humble opinion: Offline mode is as much fun as you make it. If it isn't a challenge, you've got your settings wrong, or you've not put enough time and effort into it.. Work at it, nurse it, create a league of your own, don't always draft the best players, try winning with the 59 White Sox or turning around the 1930 Phillies...use the game to its full potential! Manage a minor league team...THAT is a fearsome challenge.

Your mileage may vary.

[quillenl]

Originally Posted by naturaldopamine

What house rules do y'all use? If I ever played an offline league again I would probably play in commissioner mode just to ensure that all of the best players/specs were protected

how incredibly tedious though

At the end of the day you still just have to say "No" at times regardless of House Rules. That said, I have a couple of must-haves for all my leagues to minimize the AI stupidity I am NOT watching. I then have some others I put in place that just improve the quality of life.

Must haves for just playing AI (going to assume historical Random Debut).

Turn Rule 5 Draft Off.

Turn Off Minor League Options - The AI loves to waive solid guys on Opening Day.

Equalize the hell out of the financials if I am not interested in taking a small market team (I like to play the Yankees so this is Mandatory). If that is unappealing, make whatever team you pick Below Average or less. To equalize financials I make virtually all income come from the National Media Contract so that I do not have to babysit Market Sizes.

I change ratings to 1-10... or even 1-5 preferably. You can always cheat and look at the editor, but this gives me a little more cloud of war when looking at players.

Change AI Trade weights to 65/15/15/5. You will get a ton of opinions on this, but I, in my opinion, I get much more reasonable results with these ratings.

Turn Off email notifications for trade offers. Never look at them. Just don't. They're like a cop sitting in his car outside the bar just waiting to bust you for taking advantage of the AI.

Limit how many trades you will allow yourself to make each season regarding starters. I don't have a hard rule for this, I just plan on 1 offseason trade and 1 deadline trade each season.

Quality of Life Rules:
I make a filter to show guys over 29 at a half star or less. I force retire these guys each offseason as they all have negative trade value. Gotta protect the AI from itself.

I turn on "Can be fired". It will piss you off because you won't get fired when you think you should... and just might when you think you should not. It's just something a little different that makes Offline more immersive to me personally.

Those are my standards. Everything else I change my mind on every couple of leagues I start. More importantly, even with all these rules... you have to stop at some po