Comments and suggestions

[gambler]

I posted in the main thread how my intial career is going, and would like to make some comments here. I'm sure some have been made before, but repetition might help get them put in.

1. Randomness in initial ratings: I know some people like being able to tweak their players exactly at the start. I'd like an option where you can do this, but then have random points added/subtracted (say 10% of the total points you add can be rearranged).

2. Player Development feels 'too fast', or more specifically, you reach your peak too quickly. Yes, I know you can increase your abilities via buying stuff, but seeing a perpetual 60 in a rating can be somewhat annoying. I think a RPG needs emphasis on both what you can buy and 'personal' improvements. This game focuses on personal improvement early, and then item improvement later. This is ok, but I tended to gain more fun during the personal improvement phase. There needs to be more balance here, and perhaps this can be as part of....

3. Spring Training: How about being able to focus on specific aspects of your game in spring training with the chance to gain more points? I know you can get more points sometimes but it's rare. Make Spring Training a more gradual thing where you get smaller amounts of RPG points than through great performance or setting your training schedules properly... Which brings me to...

4. Training Schedules: This is probably the least intuitive part of the game for me. It would be nice if the overall effects on your skills were shown somewhere.. ie, as you add an exercise, a bar for the appropriate skill(s) goes from red to green (ie, HR power, stealing, etc). Also, adding in a 'suggested regimen' based on choosing how much to weight each skill set would be nice (ie, you set each skill at 0-5 in how much effort you want to spend on it, and the computer gives a suggested regimen - you'd still probably have to fine tune it, but it would be a starting point).

5. Coach effects: Have position coaches that are rated not only overall but in each appropriate skillset.. One coach might be excellent in getting more power from you, but poor at teaching how to get good contact.

6. More career choices: I have yet to get to free agency, but there should be the ability to demand trades. Every so often, perhaps you can receive special 'skill' points. For instance, say your personality is a clubhouse leader. Randomly over the course of the year you could pick up 1-2 'inspiration' points that you can choose to use to deliver a speech in the locker room (before a key series with a division opponent when you're fighting for the pennant with them, during a slump, etc). Same kind of things for the different personality types.

7. The Bar: This just feels odd to me. It's by far the quickest way to get better at eye and contact, but once you're maxed out, unless you're injured, there's little reason to do this anymore except to improve your mood. I guess as is, this kinda takes away from the fact that once you reach your prime there's little for you to do each year. I'd like to see more emphasis on the RP aspects of your career instead of the Bar.

8. More immersiveness: Yeah, you can get all the info you want on the league via the 'web feature' but it takes too long to load, and the screens are a bit less easy to navigate than OOTP. One thing I was really wishing for was a 'player tracker' feature like in OOTP6. Mainly because there was a 2B taken a year before I was who was my 'competition'. He ended up traded, and then apparently traded again, but I've lost track of where he is. Maybe also a 'team tracking' feature, so you can get the scores for teams your club might be fighting for a playoff spot with. More e-mails for things like "Player of the Game", Player of the Week, if you make the Top 100 prospects list, etc.

Anyhow, those're my initial thoughts after playing with this thing for a bit.

[JsnMthw]

I'd like to add some opinions to these, and offer up a suggestion or two of my own.

1. I think this would be a great feature. Another approach would be to have the game automatically and randomly assign any points you don't use (so if you want 10% of your points distributed randomly, only spend 90% of them in the first place).

2. I couldn't agree more. I can't count the number of prospects from OOTP that have had a talent rating they didn't fully reach until their 30s. Even if the majority of potential is reached quickly, there should always be a feeling of "I could be better".

3. An excellent way to get that "I could be better" feeling. A more interactive spring training would also give a good chance to customize your character beyond the initial skill selection.

4. I'm okay with the current training system, I just wish we had some kind of manual or something explaining what to do with the training schedules. I agree that this is very unintuitive and could be explained much better, new system or not.

5. I like the idea, but I don't consider this an important area to improve.

6. Interesting ideas. I would definately like to see the personality class a more significant part of the game (or at least see the effects that it already has). As it is, I have had careers with each of the classes except th eobsessive one, and I can't tell the difference.

7. Yeah, I hardly go to the bar anymore.

8. YES! It's hard to get into the game when the "friends" I make on teams get traded to the other league and I never see them again. And a lot of information I never look at since it takes so long to access (like the upcoming schedule, the team power rankings, the top performances...). If the game doesn't treat me like I care about any player/team but my own, then that's all I don't really have a chance to care about them.

Okay, now the things I want to add:
9. Voting: I know it's been brought up in the context of OOTP, but I would love to see the major awards "voted" on. Even if the votes are simply comparisons of performace ratings, It'd be nice to see that in my career-highlight .345, 41, 108 season, I finished second in MVP voting (as opposed to no recognition at all).

10. Secondary Positions: I realize that depending on defense ratings, secondary positions get assigned, but I would like to able to choose them. If I want to be able to play both infield and outfield poitions, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable request. My idea of how this would work would be to allow players to choose as many individual positions that they want initially, and give discounts for certain combinations of positions. For example, if you spend 3 points in order to play CF, then RF and LF can be purchased for 1 point instead of 2, or if SS is purchased at 6, then 2B can be purchased for 2 instead of 4.

11. Minors Playoffs: Do minor leagues have playoffs in real life? I don't actually know, but I do know it would be nice to see at least a one-game championship between the minor league winners of each league. As it is, I don't really have a reason to care what my minor league record is, or if we're the best. Not that I don't enjoy winning, I just don't have any reason to check the standings. This would also add to the immersement factor (#8).

[TexasLonghorns]

Originally posted by JsnMthw
11. Do minor leagues have playoffs in real life?

Yes they have playoffs in every minor league http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/playoffs/

They also have an allstar game.
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/info/allstar.asp

Great suggestions I would love to see those.