Why I'm (probably) Giving Up on OOTP

[pastorjoeboggs]

I understand that upsets happen. I get it. They happen all the time.

However, for the last two years, the number of times I have been "upset" by teams with a worse record far outnumbers the victories.

This week, I came into the playoffs with the top record in my league, the top run differential, the top scoring defense, and riding an 8-2 hot streak to finish the season. In my first series, I face a team fully 10 games worse, with less than 1/2 the run differential, a middling defensive metric, and a 3-7 record in their last 10 games. And, to boot, my team chemistry is 45% to their 12%.

So of course I not only lose but lose by blowing a 2-0 lead. Apparently the team chemistry boost is utterly meaningless.

This on the heels of darn near the same thing happening in the previous PT season, when I blew a 4 run lead in the bottom of the ninth of the clinching game.

It is discouraging - and plainly unenjoyable - to put the time and effort into strategy and lineups to have a successful season only to get repeatedly screwed in the postseason. It's reached the point where I get to Sundays and think, "Well, here comes another first series exit." And what's the point of playing at that point?

I don't know what, if anything, I expect the devs to do, but it's ruining my experience of the game.

[Ty Cobb]

1. PT is not the entirety of OOTP.
2. Strategy can have a serious impact on outcomes.
3. We almost ended up with Baltimore and Arizona in the WS last year. They're 2 of the 10 lowest payrolls. Wasn't it Chuck Tanner who said, "It's not the best 25 men. It's the right 25 men."? I'll venture Chuck knew more of the game than either you or I.

Maybe take a week away from PT and play the regular game and catch your breath. I hate so see folks get discouraged.

[pastorjoeboggs]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

1. PT is not the entirety of OOTP.
2. Strategy can have a serious impact on outcomes.
3. We almost ended up with Baltimore and Arizona in the WS last year. They're 2 of the 10 lowest payrolls. Wasn't it Chuck Tanner who said, "It's not the best 25 men. It's the right 25 men."? I'll venture Chuck knew more of the game than either you or I.

Maybe take a week away from PT and play the regular game and catch your breath. I hate so see folks get discouraged.

Fair points. It seems, though, that in real life, *most* of the time the 95+ win team manages to beat the 85 win team. I'm frustrated because I'm seeing the exact opposite...unless, of course, I *am* the 85 win team. Then I get swept.

[pilight]

Last season there were four 95+ win teams. None of them won a playoff series. Only one even won a postseason game.

[shipfb21]

It just shows how hard it is to win a championship. How much fun would it be, building the best team and cruising to the world series and winning 4 out of 5 championships. You can go through the last 20 years of baseball and see that the best record doesn't win the majority of time. Especially now with added playoff teams, makes it even more challenging. You just have to keep grinding and the agony of defeat and tears of pain, will all be worth it when your team does lift the trophy, and in fact in will make it much more enjoyable and much more significant to you

[Ratbelly]

Look at the last 5 or 6 years of actual major league playoffs. It will surprise you. Most of the time, the team with the best record does not win the world series.

[Pdubya64]

Look, you're not alone in this regard. Maybe just take a break from PT and find something else to do or try regular OOTP 25.
I am lucky I haven't put my fist through the monitor (wow would THAT be expensive!) for my best player blowing out his arm in another season.

Hope you will be back with it at some point.

[EmoDmgSports]

Originally Posted by pastorjoeboggs

I understand that upsets happen. I get it. They happen all the time.

However, for the last two years, the number of times I have been "upset" by teams with a worse record far outnumbers the victories.

This week, I came into the playoffs with the top record in my league, the top run differential, the top scoring defense, and riding an 8-2 hot streak to finish the season. In my first series, I face a team fully 10 games worse, with less than 1/2 the run differential, a middling defensive metric, and a 3-7 record in their last 10 games. And, to boot, my team chemistry is 45% to their 12%.

So of course I not only lose but lose by blowing a 2-0 lead. Apparently the team chemistry boost is utterly meaningless.

This on the heels of darn near the same thing happening in the previous PT season, when I blew a 4 run lead in the bottom of the ninth of the clinching game.

It is discouraging - and plainly unenjoyable - to put the time and effort into strategy and lineups to have a successful season only to get repeatedly screwed in the postseason. It's reached the point where I get to Sundays and think, "Well, here comes another first series exit." And what's the point of playing at that point?

I don't know what, if anything, I expect the devs to do, but it's ruining my experience of the game.

Try and look at it from the other side. If every time you were the favorite or you always won would that really be any fun or challenge?

[jpeters1734]

I don't get this complaint.

Over the course of a 162 game season, you're upset because a team that won 10 less games than you beat you in a 5 game series? you don't understand how close teams are talent-wise that are only 10 games apart over the course of a full season

[Antonin]

I only play regular OOTP, but over the years I have reached a point where I'm not very concerned about winning a championship. Yes, I try to win it all, but my fun revolves mainly around beating my division or subleague rivals and watching the careers of certain players develop.

Strangely enough, I have *never* won a championship when playing out games. But when I resign and then sim through several years, teams I have built have won it all more than once. Maybe, just maybe, OOTP is biased against human players. Whatever. I just enjoy the game for what it is: a chance for me to pretend to be a big-league baseball manager. It has given me countless hours of enjoyment.

[sdw1000]

Originally Posted by pastorjoeboggs

I understand that upsets happen. I get it. They happen all the time.

However, for the last two years, the number of times I have been "upset" by teams with a worse record far outnumbers the victories.

This week, I came into the playoffs with the top record in my league, the top run differential, the top scoring defense, and riding an 8-2 hot streak to finish the season. In my first series, I face a team fully 10 games worse, with less than 1/2 the run differential, a middling defensive metric, and a 3-7 record in their last 10 games. And, to boot, my team chemistry is 45% to their 12%.

So of course I not only lose but lose by blowing a 2-0 lead. Apparently the team chemistry boost is utterly meaningless.

This on the heels of darn near the same thing happening in the previous PT season, when I blew a 4 run lead in the bottom of the ninth of the clinching game. Personally, I think PT is jacked up. It's not realistic or something. I was about to quit when I played it too. A team of Hall of Famers just losing to a bunch of regular MLB chumps I thought was ridiculous.

It is discouraging - and plainly unenjoyable - to put the time and effort into strategy and lineups to have a successful season only to get repeatedly screwed in the postseason. It's reached the point where I get to Sundays and think, "Well, here comes another first series exit." And what's the point of playing at that point?

I don't know what, if anything, I expect the devs to do, but it's ruining my experience of the game.

I hate PT. Reason why I never play it. It's not the same as playing the regular. But if you just wanna quit the whole thing because of PT, then go ahead.

[JohnCena]

Originally Posted by pilight

Last season there were four 95+ win teams. None of them won a playoff series. Only one even won a postseason game.

This should be the end of the thread right here

[pastorjoeboggs]

Originally Posted by Ratbelly

Look at the last 5 or 6 years of actual major league playoffs. It will surprise you. Most of the time, the team with the best record does not win the world series.

That I understand. It wouldn't be nearly as upsetting or discouraging if I were losing in the World Series or even the LCS. I was a Braves fan in the 90s. But the number of times I lose the division series when I am 10 or more games better over the season is where I am losing my interest. In 30 years of real world division series, only 8 teams have blown a 2-0 series lead in a best of 5. It should be a rare occurrence, not something that happens semi-regularly.

(It doesn't help that the last two PT seasons, it's happened in gold, so getting screwed twice cost me 50k in points. I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated if it were for promotion to silver.)

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by pastorjoeboggs

That I understand. It wouldn't be nearly as upsetting or discouraging if I were losing in the World Series or even the LCS. I was a Braves fan in the 90s. But the number of times I lose the division series when I am 10 or more games better over the season is where I am losing my interest. In 30 years of real world division series, only 8 teams have blown a 2-0 series lead in a best of 5. It should be a rare occurrence, not something that happens semi-regularly.

(It doesn't help that the last two PT seasons, it's happened in gold, so getting screwed twice cost me 50k in points. I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated if it were for promotion to silver.)

That's because you maintain the belief that 10 games between two teams is a substantial difference. an 85 win team and a 95 win team are so much closer together talent-wise than you realize. That comes down to a bad week and a half in June during a 6 month season.

[pastorjoeboggs]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

I don't get this complaint.

Over the course of a 162 game season, you're upset because a team that won 10 less games than you beat you in a 5 game series? you don't understand how close teams are talent-wise that are only 10 games apart over the course of a full season

Since 1995, teams that go into the Division Series with a record 5 games better than their opponent are 36-30. While it *is* fairly close, the evidence suggests that the team with the higher record wins about 55% of the time, which is not statistically insignificant.

Strangely enough, when you increase it to a 10 game record gap, the winning percentage drops to 53% (16-14).

Still, the evidence seems to suggest that when a team is significantly better than their opponent going into a series, there is a reasonable expectation that they will win more often than not. That has not been my experience in this game.

EDIT: If you add the Wild Card Series since 2012, the numbers for a 5 game gap go to 44-36 (still 55%) and 10 game sits at 18-15 (up to 55%)

EDIT AGAIN, LOOKING AT RUN DIFFERENTIAL.

Since 1995, there have been 70 division series where one team's season RD is 50+ higher than the others. The higher RD went 42-28 (60%). In the 33 of those division series where the RD gap was 100+, the higher RD went 21-12 (64%)

So it seems like maybe I understand the data plenty well. It is not unreasonable to expect that a team with a significantly better record and RD would win the series more often than not, even taking into account injuries and the closeness of the talent gap. Certainly it is reasonable to expect that the better record/RD would win at least 1/3 of the time.

[AESP_pres]

Good thing you don't watch hockey since last year the best team in the NHL (Boston with 135pts) was eliminated in first round by a team who almost didn't qualified for the playoff (Florida with 92pts).

[pastorjoeboggs]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

Good thing you don't watch hockey since last year the best team in the NHL (Boston with 135pts) was eliminated in first round by a team who almost didn't qualified for the playoff (Florida with 92pts).

You're missing my point. I'm not annoyed that upsets happen.

If the 92 point Panthers *regularly* defeat the 135 point Bruins, it stops being an upset. It loses its sense of being special.

My point is that I now have two years of evidence in PT that upsets are far more frequent than in real life.

I imagine part of it is down to the ability of a player to acquire a much better player through packs or missions right before the playoffs and changing the talent balance. As I said above, I don't know that there's anything the devs can (or should) do, but it is annoying.

[AESP_pres]

TBH if this is the problem (I don't play that part of the game) they should set a trade deadline like every professional sport leagues do.

[md40022]

Baseball probably has more upsets than any other of the major sports. Someone once said in baseball every team is going to win 60 games and every team is going to lose 60 games so it really all boils down to what you do for those other 40 games that separates the best teams in the league from the worst teams.

Like someone already said, look at how all the top record teams did in the playoffs last year.

[Ty Cobb]

Originally Posted by AESP_pres

TBH if this is the problem (I don't play that part of the game) they should set a trade deadline like every professional sport leagues do.

is a problem in PT. Lots of people end up getting just enough points by the end of the week to muscle up their team right before playoffs start. Other sandbag...wait and see if they make the playoffs and then bring out the muscle they've hidden.

A PT Trade deadline would be a very good thing!