Suggestions: New Features / Grab Bag

[battists]

Suggestion
"Acquired Player Handling" manager option

Create a manager option called "Acquired Player Handling," that would work like this:

When I acquire players:
- place them in DFA until I manually move them
- have my managers place them at the appropriate level
- ask me

Here's how these options would work:

Place them in DFA
If this option is selected, then ALL acquired players would go to DFA. This includes all draft picks, including Rule 5, expansion, amateur, and inaugural. This also includes waiver claims, free agent signings (minor or major league) and trades.

Of course, the game will still remember where the player needs to be. You wouldn't be allowed to place a Rule 5 draftee in the minors, for example.

This option just makes it really consistent for human managers. I obtained a player, he's in DFA. EVERY TIME.

Have my managers place them
With this option, the AI will place the players wherever they feel is appropriate, according to the terms of the transaction and the players' ratings. For example, a Rule 5 draftee would go on the active roster. A 1st round draft pick might go to Single-A, while a minor league free agent signing might go to AAA.

Ask me
When "ask me" is selected, any time you obtain a player, you would immediately be presented with a pop-up that says:

You have just obtained SP Will Smith (display block of ratings/potential ratings). What should we do with him?

Then you could choose from the following options:
- Place him on DFA while I decide what to do.
- Place him on the active roster, adding him to the secondary roster if necessary
- Place him on AAA Tucson
- Place him on AA Reading
- etc for all of your affiliated teams, in descending order of league level

Finally, even leagues with no minors and just reserve rosters should have access to the DFA box where players go in this scenario. (I believe leagues with no minors don't currently have access to DFA?)

Reason
More flexibility, but more importantly for me, this would help simplify the game. Today, there's a certain amount of "Well, if I set up my game THIS way, then they go HERE. If I did it THIS way, they go THERE." Or, "If I got him via trade, he goes HERE. If I got him via draft, he goes THERE."

This adds to the perception of OOTP being overly complex. Baseball transactions are complex enough without our help. Personally, I suspect that a lot of people would choose the "send everyone to DFA" option, especially during drafts.

Priority
High

[battists]

Suggestion
Implement retroactive disabled list assignments.

When you place someone on the DL, have it ask the effective date of the assignment, much like the date box used when you do an "Auto-Play to Date X". Effective date would default to today.

This could be added to the same dialog box that asks you whether it's 15-day or 60-day DL.

Reason
More realistic, and incredibly helpful for online leagues as well.

Priority
High

[battists]

Suggestion
Implement minor league disabled lists.

Reason
More realistic, and very helpful for managing minor leagues in more detail.

Priority
Medium

[Who Killed Kenny?]

Suggestion
Real Time OOTP process/daemon

Hopefully this comes out right. Here I go:
I love playing OOTP but unfortunately I have to work so I cant play it 8 hours a day. I'm also a Chicago Cubs fan and they play a lot during the day and since I am at work I cannot watch them. However the main difference is that I AM able to follow the Cubs via their website. So here's the idea: Implement a process/daemon where games are simmed and uploaded to a site of my choosing as the games are played. Then I could watch as my OOTP Chicago Cubs defeat the Cardinals and watch the real Cubs do the same from the comfort of my work computer.

How would this work?
From when this process/daemon is turned on it looks at the time on the computer vs the time of day of the game. When the time on the computer is past the time of the game it will sim the game (prolly the whole game right now since im not asking for remote managing). Then the process/daemon would divide the box scores, play-by-play, etc into timed slices and uploads the appropriate one every 30-60 seconds.

Now it seems like you're watching the game being played out!

I can see this being very neat to have for Online Leagues. They'll be able to track their team through the week (or however long). Maybe this process/daemon will allow remote changes be made for future games? A lot could be done.

Reason
Mainly to pass time at work. Also good for Online Leagues.

Priority
Low

[Mattymo]

Suggestion
Allow nicknames to be editable without going into commisioner mode.

Reason
It's fun to give players nicknames, and in real life nicknames change and evolve over time.

Priority
low

[Oxydizer]

Suggestion:
Stadium Generator. Along the same thought a FaceGen. If you can make FaceGen, I don't see why we can't have StadiumGen.

Reason:
I think this makes a compleate package. The reason I think is pretty obvious. There just are not enough stadium makers in OOTP land.

Priority:
High

[Charley575]

Suggestion
May we please have a fully functional schedule generator in the game?

Reason
Current schedule generator is weak. It cannot deal with unbalanced schedules or interleague play. Also, it does not stagger off days. All teams have same days off.

Priority
High.

[Rainier 1]

Originally Posted by Charley575

Suggestion
May we please have a fully functional schedule generator in the game?

Reason
Current schedule generator is weak. It cannot deal with unbalanced schedules or interleague play. Also, it does not stagger off days. All teams have same days off.

Priority
High.

In addition, can double-headers be acknowledged on the calendar/schedule screen. Currently only the first game of a double-header is shown.

[Mattingly06]

Suggestion
Add ESPN-esque "bottom line" ticker

Reason
I think this option could pass along information to the user in quick, timely fashion. It could show things like waivers, released players, players placed on trade block, etc. so I don't have to constantly go to the email screen each time I sim.

Priority
Low, it would be a welcome addition but not a necessity

[wilkiburger]

Suggestion

On the standings screen can we have games to elimination and if there is more than one playoff place available can we have more than one clinched!
Reason

Its there in every website you go to hence looks more realistic and it helps on the eye when you are looking for your rivals.
Priority

Being a simplistic request, I am hoping it will be high!

[Garlon]

Suggestion
More Awards.

We already have award categories that are equivalent to MVP, Cy Young, ROY, and Gold Gloves, but we more could use more or improve upon them:

-Relief Ace Award (Create a point system for relief Wins, and 1/2/3 inning saves, and 1/2/3 run saves. The relief pitcher with the most points gets this award. Kind of like the Rolaids Relief Award.)

-Seperate Rookie Awards for Hitters and Pitchers. There will be 2 ROY's per league each season, a hitter and a pitcher.

-All-Star Game MVP

-World Series MVP

-Silver Slugger (Best VORP or OPS by position?)

-Manager of the Year (The winner each year goes to a team who A. Has a winning record and B. has made the most improvement in their Winning % from the previous season. Essentially this goes to the manager of the most improved team from the previous season, while restiricting it to only teams who ended up with a winning record.)

Reason
Awards are fun :-)

Priority
Low

[ctorg]

Suggestion
In addition to being able to play as a manager/GM, allow people to play as agents for a completely different experience. A bit like Inside the Park Baseball, but with the ability to manage multiple players.

Reason
It provides a vastly different and equally replayable experience and I've never heard of a game that has done it well, but I know there is a call for it, and having the superb OOTP engine would beat any game that even tried to do it. Plus, imagine being able to play in a massive online league where the teams are owned by real people and the players are managed by real people as well.

Priority
Medium (and long-term)

[southsidefan]

Suggestion: Have Team HOF with player number retirement.


Reason: Players sometime jump leagues( majors to Japan) and don't get full milestones in one certain league.Plus team can give them preference to any of the coach/managers jobs,And maybe for furture features (ownership or obituaries) Plus it would be just plain fun.


priority: low

[Honolulu Blue]

Suggestion
Rookie card values

Reason
This was one of the cute features of Inside the Park Baseball. For those of you not familiar with that game system, when a player debuted in the majors, he would get assigned a rookie card value of a nickel. It would grow and grow as he became more popular, stayed in the majors, and did more spectacular things. If it reached $1000, he was a probable Hall of Famer.

It's another way to evaluate players and their progress. And it's fun. What's not to like about it?

Priority
Low

[bailey]

Suggestion:

On the leaderboards page there is currently for each category, season and career records. I'd like to see 'year' added, so I can get a year-by-year record of the batting avg champion or HR leader or whatever.

Reason:

The information is there, but is not displayed anywhere conveniently. If I want it, I have to maintain it manually.

Priority:

Low.

[KGAGE]

Suggestion
Adding to the ESPN Ticker idea above which I agree with - While playing out games, the ticker should give you updates of other action occuring while you play out your game. Scoring updates, milestone updates. How cool would it be if you had a player somewhere in the league approaching the HR record and the ticker comes up with "Barry Bonds coming to bat in the 5th - Currently 5 HR's behind Hank Arron's HR Record" with a link for you to click on so you could temporarily leave your game and watch the action of the other game.

Reason
Immersion. The more the game seems to "know" about the world that has been created, the more realistic it will seem.

Priority
Low but would be very cool.

[phenom]

Suggestion
Spring training stats in the team Transactions screen, as they are in the regular season.

Reason
It would be easier, IMO, to determine who is having a crappy spring and should be demoted without having to go to a different screen to check stats, or even click on a player's name.

Priority
Low

[Captain Walrus]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Suggestion
More Awards.

We already have award categories that are equivalent to MVP, Cy Young, ROY, and Gold Gloves, but we more could use more or improve upon them:

-Relief Ace Award (Create a point system for relief Wins, and 1/2/3 inning saves, and 1/2/3 run saves. The relief pitcher with the most points gets this award. Kind of like the Rolaids Relief Award.)

-Seperate Rookie Awards for Hitters and Pitchers. There will be 2 ROY's per league each season, a hitter and a pitcher.

-All-Star Game MVP

-World Series MVP

-Silver Slugger (Best VORP or OPS by position?)

-Manager of the Year (The winner each year goes to a team who A. Has a winning record and B. has made the most improvement in their Winning % from the previous season. Essentially this goes to the manager of the most improved team from the previous season, while restiricting it to only teams who ended up with a winning record.)

Reason
Awards are fun :-)

Priority
Low

To enhance this:
Eliminate current award system. Allow for up to ten or so awards. Each one completely customizable. You can create an award like "Batting Title" which is given to one player who has the highest batting average in the league automatically. Or MVP, which can go to a hitter or pitcher with the highest VORP, however the checkbox for "Writers vote" is checked so it sometimes goes to the wrong player.

[mgom27]

Suggestion
Minor League Rehab Assignment,Edit Standings and Pick how many teams make the MLB Playoffs
Reason
Because so we know if the person is ready to be activated,so we can have the Standings as of today and would like to have 8 teams from the MLB in the Playoffs.
Priority
High

[Mattymo]

Suggestion

Allow for the creation of an exhibition game between "all-star teams" which would allow us to customize the rosters ourselves.

Reason

I would LOVE to set up all-star games between two leagues, between players from two seperate countries, or two states, etc...it'd be much easier than having to create a whole new league and moving players in and out.

Priority

Low, high for me though!