[Cliche]

Hi,

One of my online leagues recently completed the change from OOTP2007 to OOTP9.

In OOTP2007, cash was figured into the amount allowed for contract extensions as well as free agent signings.

In OOTP9, cash seems to only be figured into free agent available dollars. It doesn't count towards extensions.

This makes zero sense to me. Is this a setting that we've got wrong in our league, or was this change made for a reason?

[Blank]

This is actually a big deal. I would love to know why the financial system is set up this way. You can't offer a player $5,000,000 over 4 seasons, but you can offer him $20,000,000 for 1 season in free agency?????? You can't use that same money to extend your players before free agency???? It really makes no sense whatsoever.

[Recte44]

This needs to be fixed in the next patch and/or immediately.

[tysok]

It was a design decision.

It actually makes less sense to allow you to use your cash for extensions. Or at least it does in an owner controls budget league... but as I've said elsewhere that title, "Owner controls budget" isn't quite what you might expect.

It would be nice if they were two different functions. They aren't. The owner controls budget function ONLY smooths out the changes in your budget. So you couldn't go from a 50 million budget to 25 million... even if you SHOULD. You'd go from 50 million to 45 million to 40 million (max drop is some percentage).

It would be more complex if you were able to spend your cash on extensions, as well as not be quite right if the owner controlled the budget.

First, everything is figured off of next year. If you wanted to use your cash for extensions next year and further it would have to either look out further, or charge off your cash for every season.

So you have no budget room for next year, but 10 million cash. You would be able to sign him up for 10 years at 1 million, 5 years at 2 million, 3.some years at 3 million etc.... even if you had no contracts scheduled for the year after next. Or it would have to look at what you have scheduled for those years and charge off your cash appropriately. Markus doesn't want to do the second one. He could do the first one, and maybe should do the first one for when "owner controls budget" isn't on. But that's separating the functions that I get the idea he doesn't want to do either.

If owner controls budget IS on then you shouldn't be able to use your cash for extensions. The owner just told you what your budget is, it makes no sense to be able to spend over what he just told you that you could spend. He's said you can spend 80 million dollars next year... you can't spend 90 million just because you know he's got a lot of money in the bank, you have 80 million dollars.
The cash should be available to you for emergencies, your star CF goes down and you need to bring in someone else, or a star 3B comes available and you think he'll put you over the top. To streamline the process that money is made available to you for those reasons.
The owner has said you have 80 million dollars to spend, don't spend over 80 million dollars. Realizing that the world isn't cut and dry and perfect and that you may need a little extra to be the best you can be this year he also gives you the checkbook trusting that you know your job and can handle the responsibility. If you need extra money this year you can spend it..... but your budget is 80 million dollars and he fully expects that you won't give him a report of salaries for next season that tally up to 100 million dollars.

So the cash not being available is a design decision that was brought on because: A) Markus doesn't want to look at finances any further than next season and B) it makes sense when there's a field called "Budget".

[Exorcst]

Ok, lets say I want to circumvent this. Lets say I want this guy to be my franchise player and force my team to be able to sign him long term. What do I change to make the game let me do that.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by Exorcst

Ok, lets say I want to circumvent this. Lets say I want this guy to be my franchise player and force my team to be able to sign him long term. What do I change to make the game let me do that.

You could select to play in commissioner mode, I believe you aren't hampered by any of the financial rules then. If you didn't want to play that way all the time, you could change to the commissioner long enough to sign him up to the contract then switch back (then you would have all the rules still apply like normal and have to work around whatever contract you signed him to).

[BrianKoontz]

"It was a design decision.

It actually makes less sense to allow you to use your cash for extensions. Or at least it does in an owner controls budget league... but as I've said elsewhere that title, "Owner controls budget" isn't quite what you might expect."

That's inconsistent with allowing cash reserves to be used for Free Agents, though. So this kind of scenario can develop:

Due to "budget" issues, you can't resign a guy to a 1 Yr. $10 Million contract. But after he goes to FA you can then sign him to a 1 Yr. $10 Million contract, since you have the cash reserves to do so. It's insane.

The whole point of cash reserves in the first place is that it's *cash* in *reserve* - cash for use when necessary. Not being able to resign a star player for half of what you can then sign him for as a FA is extremely wrong, and the Owner if rational would hardly approve of it, yet he "approves" of it in the game.

[beorn]

Yes, the design makes perfect sense if you are using the "owner control budget." I mean, the owner gave you the $ amount you can spend already; that means that cash reserve is irrelevant.

But it makes no sense and screws up leagues that do not use "owner control budget" and this is especially true for online leagues where commish mode is not practical.

I would really hope to see this reversed.

[Corsairs]

I believe BrianKoontz and beorn make very compelling points. I would also like to see this decision altered. Regardless of what "owner controls budget" is meant to mean, most people are going to reasonably expect that, where that option isn't enabled, they will have the freedom to use their full resources as they see fit. The scenario BrianKoontz describes - having to wait until your player hits free agency before being able to use your cash to sign him - shouldn't be viewed as acceptable.

[bailey]

I started playing in Beorn's league 14 months ago using 2007 and I got rid all high priced players and restocked with foreign signings and draft picks. So, my team salary has remained very low for many seasons and the cash reserves have piled up in anticipation of signing my existing home-grown stars to long term contracts. Now, I am told this strategy has been invalidated by some stupid "design" decision at OOTP HQ. It's supposed to be a game to be played OUR way, but every new version seems to take away options.

I'm sure there is a workaround that creates extra work for the commish. For example, roll over excess cash into media contract.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by bailey

Now, I am told this strategy has been invalidated by some stupid "design" decision at OOTP HQ.

Well, it's not a "stupid" design decision... it's just a design decision that doesn't work perfectly. It makes sense. Your budget is based on your normal revenue, it's what you can afford to spend, anything more creates a very real possibility of going negative for the season.

I agree that it has some quirks that don't make sense, and it has a major flaw when owner doesn't control budget. It was a huge bug though that you could spend that cash many many times over, and it ended up being that the first solution wound up being the final solution.

I don't care either way, if it gets reverted in a patch that's fine, if it doesn't I don't mind either. There are work arounds that would put a little more work on the commish, but not something they would constantly have to monitor and fiddle with... just an hour or so of changing some numbers and it would be ready to go.

Either way though, I'm not defending it (because they should be 2 different functions, owner controls or not, not the same function that just tweaks the numbers) I'm just reporting why the change was made.

[Reikazawa]

How is the Project Payroll in the Available Funds pane computed? Why is the value different in the Salary Report?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Reikazawa

How is the Project Payroll in the Available Funds pane computed? Why is the value different in the Salary Report?

The front office screen adds pending offers, the report not.

[Markus Heinsohn]

OK guys, the next patch will factor in cash for extensions when "owner controls budget" is switched off. It was a design decision back then, but I can see that this change makes sense

[beorn]

That is great news! Thanks!

[Corsairs]

Indeed, outstanding news. Thanks for being so responsive, Markus!

[royalblue5]

This just became an issue for me this morning. How awesome is it to have the game developer be this responsive to the concerns of the games players If only EA sports could do this in the console arena.

[thbroman]

Originally Posted by royalblue5

This just became an issue for me this morning. How awesome is it to have the game developer be this responsive to the concerns of the games players If only EA sports could do this in the console arena.

You are making a huge assumption about the willingness of EA to construct a game that even remotely approaches reality in the first place. Clearly they don't intend any such thing.

By the way, did you folks see the announcement a while back that EA was going to open its first "quality-control" center in North America? What the hell do they think it will be doing? They can't actually be intending that someone actually play-test their games!

[sporr]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

The front office screen adds pending offers, the report not.

Something still isn't right. In our league, Free Agents have just filed, so there are NO pending offers. Yet, my team still shows an amount in "Offered Contracts" that, when added to the amount on the salary report equals the projected payroll.

[Killebrew]

Originally Posted by sporr

Something still isn't right. In our league, Free Agents have just filed, so there are NO pending offers. Yet, my team still shows an amount in "Offered Contracts" that, when added to the amount on the salary report equals the projected payroll.

Ditto for the CDL - we are past Free Agency now but when we began free agency this season we had the same occurrence of outstanding offers listed when it was obvious there were no outstanding offers for the team in question. In one example the team had $22 million in offered contracts.... except there were no actual offered contracts:-). Maybe some types of offers are not removed from the calculation even after the player refuses or signs. Even with arbitration numbers figured into the above example it could not have gone close to $22 million.

FWIW entered as Bugzilla ticket #1887 on August 21st.