[dcpcarmona]

ability to turn league awards on/off, useful for historical leagues.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

That should go as well.

Even though I did respond to it, I agree this isn't the place for that comment or my response.

[aewin]

Customizable limits for player contract incentives. It is too hard for a commish to monitor the common league impoosed rules, eg:

Contract Incentive Rules:

• The TOTAL value of both types of incentives (Minimum # of Innings Pitched and Cy Young Award Bonus or Minimum # of At-Bats and MVP Bonus) must not exceed the higher of:
  • $[500,000]; or
  • [25]% of the lowest annual contract offered to the player.
• Other restrictions:
  • Amount of At-Bats must be [550] or less; and
  • Innings pitched for Pitchers with Endurance greater than or equal to [11/20] must be [180] Innings Pitched or lower; and
  • Innings pitched for Pitchers with Endruance less than [11/20] must be [80] Innings Pitched or lower; and
  • No Cy Young Award bonuses for Pitchers with Endurance less than [11/20].

[risp2out]

As a long-time players of table top games (strat, SI, Dynasty League), I always found one of the hardest things to do was to make schedules. One of the great advantages of computerized play is that the computer will automate schedules. GMO is a hero around here, but I would love an easy-to-use schedule maker, especially for things like 19th-century schedules, college schedules, etc. I'm the kind of customer who is likely to buy the newest version routinely, but that would be an instant sales point for me.

[risp2out]

Oh, yeah, and the ability to allow ties. They were pretty common in early baseball.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by risp2out

Oh, yeah, and the ability to allow ties. They were pretty common in early baseball.

To elaborate on this, I think in Japan they only play 15 innings then a game is a tie. Having that rule as an option would be cool. In fact it would be cool to have a list:

Play to a finish (default)
play 15 innings (Japan)
play 12 innings
play 9 innings

How ties should be dealt with in standings should let us choose between them not counting or being worth half a win and half a loss (a-la the NFL).

[Eiskrap]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

To elaborate on this, I think in Japan they only play 15 innings then a game is a tie. Having that rule as an option would be cool. In fact it would be cool to have a list:

Play to a finish (default)
play 15 innings (Japan)
play 12 innings
play 9 innings

How ties should be dealt with in standings should let us choose between them not counting or being worth half a win and half a loss (a-la the NFL).

I like this as I'd like a 9 inning limit in my Euro league. I guess it might be quite a lot of work for a relatively small feature as you would have to add additional AI for each of the situations as you would manage differently based on knowing it would be a tie after 9 or you might continue to 12/15 innings

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by risp2out

As a long-time players of table top games (strat, SI, Dynasty League), I always found one of the hardest things to do was to make schedules. One of the great advantages of computerized play is that the computer will automate schedules. GMO is a hero around here, but I would love an easy-to-use schedule maker, especially for things like 19th-century schedules, college schedules, etc. I'm the kind of customer who is likely to buy the newest version routinely, but that would be an instant sales point for me.

Yeah, I've found myself pulling out my hair while making out some short schedules on paper. Though I do like the current in-game schedule editor for entering the schedule once I figure it out. Also, I don't think there is a way to export the schedule for saving once I do enter it in the in-game editor.

I would be in favor of a more complete scheduling tool.

[CBL-Commish]

The ability to limit reserve rosters to less than 15. As it is you still have to have the smallest of indy league teams with at least 30 players under contract at all times (15 active + 15 reserve). Limited reserve rosters was a listed feature of OOTPX, but the feature really only changed the limit from infinity to 15 or more.

[Puckett guy]

I preface my suggestions with the comment that I strictly play with fictitous leagues and players. Therefore, recreating historic stats does not interest me and I do not have a problem if off field events can affect on field play.

I would like to see the game develop more personality. By this I suggest that:

1. Players sometimes like/dislike other players, coaches, managers, general managers.
2. Players have agents who can affect contract negotiations.
3. The contract negotiation features of the game are better developed. Players and agents will actually reduce their demands to keep negotiations moving towards a settlement.
4. Some players are simply high maintenace, others are true professionals.
5. The game has a strong media component. Players may read the papers and their morale can be affected by media coverage or comments you make to the media.
6. The manager or GM conducts regular press conferences and may have to field difficult questions.
7. Regular input from coaches of what is happening in the locker room, who is helping the team, who is hindering it. Reports of any significant changes in player capabilities. E.g. a report from your pitching coach that a pitcher has developed a new pitch. Similar reports from managers of the minor league teams.
8. Reports from the team's head accountant which keeps you informed of any financial changes, trends, concerns.
9. Changes in your reputation as a manager or GM that affect your dealings with other players, agents and GMs from other teams.
10. Successful trading with a divisional opponent is much more difficult then with teams outside your division or competition group.
11. Some foreign players may have a difficult time adjusting to the new culture, language.

I realize that many of these things may not be practical for the next version of OOTP, but I would like to see the game eventually move in this direction. Of course any of this could be made optional for those who would like to keep the game based purely on on-field statistical capabilities.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

To elaborate on this, I think in Japan they only play 15 innings then a game is a tie.

It's 12 innings in Japan, at least, that's the last figure I recall being used.

The Korean Baseball Organization also used to allow ties, but dropped that provision starting with the 2008 season.

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

How ties should be dealt with in standings should let us choose between them not counting or being worth half a win and half a loss (a-la the NFL).

The NFL has used both methods. Prior to 1972, it used to ignore ties for the purposes of calculating winning percentage. From 1972 onwards, it has considered ties as half won and half lost.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Puckett guy

I preface my suggestions with the comment that I strictly play with fictitous leagues and players. Therefore, recreating historic stats does not interest me and I do not have a problem if off field events can affect on field play.

I would like to see the game develop more personality. By this I suggest that:

1. Players sometimes like/dislike other players, coaches, managers, general managers.
2. Players have agents who can affect contract negotiations.
3. The contract negotiation features of the game are better developed. Players and agents will actually reduce their demands to keep negotiations moving towards a settlement.
4. Some players are simply high maintenace, others are true professionals.
5. The game has a strong media component. Players may read the papers and their morale can be affected by media coverage or comments you make to the media.
6. The manager or GM conducts regular press conferences and may have to field difficult questions.
7. Regular input from coaches of what is happening in the locker room, who is helping the team, who is hindering it. Reports of any significant changes in player capabilities. E.g. a report from your pitching coach that a pitcher has developed a new pitch. Similar reports from managers of the minor league teams.
8. Reports from the team's head accountant which keeps you informed of any financial changes, trends, concerns.
9. Changes in your reputation as a manager or GM that affect your dealings with other players, agents and GMs from other teams.
10. Successful trading with a divisional opponent is much more difficult then with teams outside your division or competition group.
11. Some foreign players may have a difficult time adjusting to the new culture, language.

I realize that many of these things may not be practical for the next version of OOTP, but I would like to see the game eventually move in this direction. Of course any of this could be made optional for those who would like to keep the game based purely on on-field statistical capabilities.

ahh yes, a fellow FM player!! I agree with you in terms of the direction OOTP needs to go. FM isn't the greatest game in this genre for nothing. Can't wait for FM 2010 in a few weeks. If there is anyone here who was never given this game a shot, I would highly suggest you do...if anything for the purpose of realizing what OOTP COULD be!! It may be soccer, but the fun factor and then realistic nature of the game just sucks you in.

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by Puckett guy

I preface my suggestions with the comment that I strictly play with fictitous leagues and players. Therefore, recreating historic stats does not interest me and I do not have a problem if off field events can affect on field play.

I would like to see the game develop more personality. By this I suggest that:

1. Players sometimes like/dislike other players, coaches, managers, general managers.
2. Players have agents who can affect contract negotiations.
3. The contract negotiation features of the game are better developed. Players and agents will actually reduce their demands to keep negotiations moving towards a settlement.
4. Some players are simply high maintenace, others are true professionals.
5. The game has a strong media component. Players may read the papers and their morale can be affected by media coverage or comments you make to the media.
6. The manager or GM conducts regular press conferences and may have to field difficult questions.
7. Regular input from coaches of what is happening in the locker room, who is helping the team, who is hindering it. Reports of any significant changes in player capabilities. E.g. a report from your pitching coach that a pitcher has developed a new pitch. Similar reports from managers of the minor league teams.
8. Reports from the team's head accountant which keeps you informed of any financial changes, trends, concerns.
9. Changes in your reputation as a manager or GM that affect your dealings with other players, agents and GMs from other teams.
10. Successful trading with a divisional opponent is much more difficult then with teams outside your division or competition group.
11. Some foreign players may have a difficult time adjusting to the new culture, language.

I realize that many of these things may not be practical for the next version of OOTP, but I would like to see the game eventually move in this direction. Of course any of this could be made optional for those who would like to keep the game based purely on on-field statistical capabilities.

I wholeheartedly agree with the direction you're going, which echoes my own list of thoughts on the matter. As far as I'm concerned, interjecting personality into the game is something that would make a good high-priority improvement for OOTP XI. The pure stat portion of the game is doing quite well right now. Of course it can be improved, but there comes a point when you're putting in a great deal of work for a marginal gain.

Meanwhile, developing character, personality and history aspects could very well open up a whole new market for OOTP. That's good for all of us, even those with little interest in the development of the "touchy-feely" side of the game, since it means more development dollars to pour into other areas.

[Puckett guy]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

ahh yes, a fellow FM player!!

Is it that obvious? Yes, I have plagarized many of the features in FM, but that is because they work so well. You feel like you are managing players and not simply manipulating numbers.

[Buane]

As far as I'm concerned, OOTPXI would do well to add a few new changes geared towards Online Leagues. There are some aspects of the game that aren't perfect, but sort themselves out in AI leagues. In online leagues, with a league full of human managers, these weaknesses are really brought straight to the forefront.

The Free Agency system needs an overhaul. Or at least, a seperate "online" setting for use in online leagues. The current system is at the mercy of the AI engine which basically decides what a player is worth, with that player scoffing at any offer it deems is too low. Now sure, players' demands do start to come back down as free agency moves along, but while AI teams will attack any free agent with escalating offers over the entire course of free agency, human teams will smartly spend their money elsewhere. Why wait around doing nothing from November to February to see if the high-risk high-reward 39-year-old catcher who wants $20 million dollars will drop his demands to something more realistic, when you can just go sign the average 28-year-old catcher for $10 million dollars. Or heck, why not go spend that $20 million on a different position altogether?

The result of this is either one of two scenarios. One: good players' careers get cut short because by the time their demands drop to something sort of reasonable (if they even drop that far at all), the money has been mostly spent over the course of the offseason, and the player no longer has any suitors even at the reduced price. Or, two: players sign contracts worth less than what they were offered during free agency.

It is the second scenario here that is the most frustrating in an online league. It's not uncommon for a player who's asking for $20 million to turn down offers of $14 million in November and December. Then in March as Spring Training is beginning, or perhaps on Opening Day, that player accepts a deal worth $8 million. How do you feel if you're the team that offered $14 million, got turned down, and had to spend your money elsewhere?

How should the system work? Well, quite simply, players should never discard an offer if it's the best offer they've received so far. The relationship between that offer and the offer the player is looking for should determine how long the player waits before accepting the deal, but it should never be completely disregarded just because it's "too low." If I offer the catcher $4 million instead of the $20 he wants, he shouldn't tell me to get lost, but he should instead wait until Spring Training is about to begin before he signs it. This turns the free agent market into a much more market-driven system. Players contracts are worth what the league decides they're worth, not that the game decides they should be worth.

While we're on the subject of when a player signs, another thing that plagues online free-agency is the sniping of players by other teams as the season approaches. Everyone who's ever been in an online league has had the following happen to them:

First offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Second offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Third offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Fourth offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Fifth offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Sixth offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Seventh offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Eighth offseason sim: Player A loves his offer.
Final offseason sim: Player A has received a better offer from Team X, and has signed a contract with them instead!

It's not uncommon to download a newly simmed file and find that the player who's favored your offer all offseason has not only gotten a better offer from another team, but has signed with that team, sometimes on the same day. There needs to be an option for leagues to set a "grace period," or the amount of days a player must wait before signing a contract after receiving a new top offer. NO online league can sim the offseason day-by-day, so being able to mandate that free agents must wait 7 days to sign a contract gives other teams a fair chance to make a counter-offer without the player being stolen away from them.

Now these changes would move the free agent system towards being market-driven, something it's not at all right now. Instead of having to pay players what they're asking for, the league would set its own worth for players. Aging, injury-prone first-basemen who are worth $8 million would now get $8 million, and not the $15 million that they're demanding.

As a by-product of a new free agent system, you would greatly enhance the viability of using the Free Agent Compensation System in online leagues. In theory, the compensation system makes sense to use, both from a realism perspective and a parity perspective. And in my experience, there are leagues out there that want to use it, but two things are stopping them. For one, and this is speaking as the Commissioner of an online league, why would I ever want to use a system in my league that I have absolutely no control over? Solution: make Player Types (Type-A, Type-B, No Compensation) editable in the player editor. Emulating the convoluted, ill-conceived compensation system of the real world was a questionable choice at best, but giving the commissioner no control over what players are what type is a deal killer.

The second thing that stops leagues from using the Compensation system is the concept that now, not only do you have to pay that aging catcher the $20 million he's demanding, but you have to lose a 1st rounder just for the priveledge of overpaying him. In a system where the market truly sets the price for each player, each league would put its own price on the loss of a first rounder. There's nobody who would ever overpay to get an average player AND lose a draft pick doing it...but to get an average player for a reduced price? That might be worth the loss of the pick. Under the current system, that doesn't happen, because players will refuse to even look at a contract that's too far beneath their game-mandated demands. So, in my opinion, for Free Agent Compensation to work, the free agency system has to be changed in the manner which I outlined above.

There's a litany of things that could be changed, or adjusted, or added, as far as online leagues are concerned. They work very differently than solo-play leagues. I'm not going to pretend to tell you which part of your customer base is most important to keep happy. And, as such, I'm not going to pretend that the online-league player community should get everything it desires either. But this issue is at least a good start, and fixing it would go a long way to solving some long-standing problems that plague online-leagues with every passing season.

[beorn]

1) A better fleshed out coach and manager system. In real life, the results are quite obvious, but no one I know can be sure there is any effect in the game, at least not unless comparing extremes... Related to this, a better implementation of contract bidding for personnel. Top talent should balk at any minor league job, and money should make more of a difference in the guy choosing between comparable jobs.

2) Player development improvement. At present, most of the random talent change is seen in the "main" attributes (contact, movement, etc.) with very little or none in other areas (sacrifice bunts, fielding range, gb/fb%, work ethic, holding runners, etc.) The unfortunate result is that, when evaluating a high school player in the ammy draft, it is often best to base your mid to late round picks on these secondary areas, which is highly unrealistic. (btw, pitcher development is vastly improved in 10)

3) A setting to decide at what point to sit/play day-to-day injured players... a big deal in online leagues, where I have the impression many significant injuries result from accidentally playing injured guys.

4) A setting to prioritize pinch hitters. In online leagues, i have had to ditch useful gloves because the AI kept using them as pinch hitters at crucial times.

5) A setting to control the quality of players found by scouts in foreign countries. The way it is might be fine for realism in creating leagues like modern baseball, but it makes the ammy draft a poor counterweight to differences in GM talent in online leagues. (If 40% of the future hall of famers come as foreign finds, then the ammy draft is far less important.)

[John C]

My immersion features (that are not really essential, but seem easy to implement and would go a long way)

- BBN Bottom Line - Scroll bar along the bottom of the screen, a la ESPN's Bottom Line. Has scores, schedules, top news, fantasy rankings, top prospects, etc.
- Fantasy Rankings - There has to be an algorithm availability that would make this easy to incorporate. It's functionality is strictly peripheral, though it would give everyone an easier time getting into the leagues they're in (and online leagues a nice discussion piece)
- Starter/Reliever Pitcher Splits - Have a tweener and can't figure out where he fits? This would help sort that. (Markus had said that this would be in OOTPX in a previous conversation we had, but he forgot and I didn't keep on him about it. This is the first of many reminders coming.)

I have more, but this is a good start for me for now.

[JadedMsFan]

1. Replace Total Average with wOBA
I haven't seen TAVG ever used on any common baseball stats website, whereas wOBA has quickly risen to the top of "comprehensive" rate statistics. wOBA would give OOTP 11 the best rate stat available.

2. Replace ERC (Component ERA) with FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching)
The DIPS concept has been in OOTP since 6.5(?). Yet we've never had a statistic that calculates it. ERC includes a H/9 component which DIPS/FIP ignore as an inaccurate way to measure a pitcher's performance. FIP is easy to calculate and comes in the same format as ERC and ERA.

3. Include a quantified fielding runs stat. Whether this be UZR, Total Zone, etc.
I would like to know how well my players do on a scale relative to runs. It's been long established that RF/9 and the other included fielding stats in OOTP are poor indicators of a fielder's performance.

[timlowery]

[QUOTE=beorn;2838126]1) A better fleshed out coach and manager system. In real life, the results are quite obvious, but no one I know can be sure there is any effect in the game, at least not unless comparing extremes... Related to this, a better implementation of contract bidding for personnel. Top talent should balk at any minor league job, and money should make more of a difference in the guy choosing between comparable jobs.

QUOTE]

I like this idea. I think that there should be a way to create managers, just like you would a player, with their tendencies. I remember some mods in 6.5 that allowed you to create managers who would play different styles, and assign them to teams. It made for quite an interesting situation, as managers could struggle to match their tendencies to the talent. This would be a good historical option as well...

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

I decided to expand the list I posted earlier. Here it is:

- fix fielding, please. This would include (a) using Rtz or other advanced fielding stats to generate ratings; (b) fixing the fielding LTMs; (c) adding fielding categories (PO, A, E) to the box scores; (d) adding some of the advanced fielding stats, etc.
- automatic game recaps. SOM has them. DMB users can purchase a third-party utility to have them.
- complete record book. This would include single game, post-season, and all-star game records.
- improved format for news stories. Jazz it up a bit.
- improved format for scouting reports. Jazz it up a bit.
- bring back IRS%.
- add more options to mimic historical SP/RP use. For example, using a SP to close out a game (ala the 1950s); using closers for 2- or 3-inning stints (ala the 1970s); using LOOGYs (ala the 2000s).
- baseball cards. For the fun factor.
- add more team stats, team splits.
- add more "rare plays".
- continue to add more context-sensitive PbP content.

ADDENDUM:

Could OOTP11 "ship" with a collection of historical templates? If so, it would save users the time (and hassle) of setting them up. Here's what I have in mind, specifically:

- classic pennant races: 1908, 1948, 1951, 1967, 1969, etc.
- World Series matchups: 1955, 1960, 1968, 1975, 1991, etc.
- "Greatest Teams" leagues: self-explanatory

Pics and logos would have to be downloaded separately. Otherwise, these could be ready to play out-of-the-box.