OOTP10 Suggestions: Online Leagues

[Jaxxvain]

Suggestion
Ability to choose roles and ranks for individual players. I am not sure what versions of OOTP had the ability to rank the pinch hitters, but it is something that is missing in version 9. It would be nice if we could assign roles for players like "defensive replacement only, do not pinch hit", "pinch runner", etc.

Reason
Would further enhance one's ability to "manage" their team when simming out games both solo and online.

Priority
Medium, some of this was already in previous versions.

[Raidergoo]

Suggestion
Use SFTP instead of FTP to transmit files.

Reason
More secure

Priority
High

[bailey]

Suggestion: Allow for setting lineups in 7 day lineups against both L & R pitching.

Reason: Right now, the game assumes one or the other based on a rotation that could change. If I want to rest a certain player on certain days, I can't be 100% certain he'll be rested on that day unless I select the option to avoid using alternative lineup if 'handedness doesn't match'. If I ignore 'handedness' then my platoons won't work! If I don't ignore 'handedness' then the player I want to rest may play!

Priority: HIGH

[bailey]

Suggestion: On the team's schedule page which lists the month and each date has the team's opponent and game score. You can click on the opponent to go to the opponent's home page, and if the game is completed you can click on the score to go to the box score, replay etc. What I would like to do is click on the date (which is currently not clickable) for which the day's games have been played and get league standings for that date. Ideally, it would pop up next to the calendar, so you could easily click day by day and view the daily standings.

Reason: As far as I know, there is no place for an online player to go to get standings for an older date. And sometimes its helpful to know this stuff if you are writing a story about your pennant chase down the stretch.

Priority: HIGH.

[bailey]

Suggestion: Hide the results of sims after downloading the update.

Reason: For suspense and immersion. Go to the team's calendar page. Currently, games are highlighted red for losses, green for wins and white for unplayed. Completed, but hidden games would be in yellow. Clicking on the first yellow date would bring up standings (see previous suggestion) and reveal the score of the game for that date (simultaneously updating/revealing all the stats and results throughout the league). This feature should be optional, selected in the options section of the manager menu.

Priority: Medium

[bailey]

Suggestion: Auction style bidding for free agents.

Reason: Negotiating with fake players in online league is not immersive whatsoever, IMHO. It just slows the game down as a real-time week is required to muddle through this period. Off season negotiation as it is now works best for solo play, but is cumbersome for online play.

Priority: High

Suggestion in detail: Bidding could take place in 1 or 2 sims or more as determined by the commissioner. If in 1 sim then high bid wins, however, if the 2nd bid is close the OOTP character could decide to take a lower bid because he "wants to play for a winner" or "it's closer to home", or has some other personality quirk. Also, differing lengths of contracts and amounts have to be evaluated somehow, using the algorithm already in the game. Performance bonuses should not be a consideration as online players ruthlessly exploit these to get better chances of acceptance from the game engine. If more than 1 round there has to be a chance the OOTP character accepts a decent offer now or waits for the next round. Under no circumstances should a MLC be preferred to a ML contract in the same round.

[bailey]

Suggestion: An option for the commissioner to not allow options and performance bonuses in player contracts.

Reason: GMs exploit the AI by configuring these features so that they will never have to be paid and get players for a lower price. Many leagues have to have 'fun-killing' rules outside of the game to deal with it. Great solo game feature, but not truly necessary in the online world.

Priority: High

[Jaxxvain]

Suggestion: An option for downloading only files associated with your own team.

Reason: Why should I download a massive 50megs worth of file when only 1/30th of it involves my team? If an owner clicks on another teams player (that did not get updated) the game could prompt to download the rest of the files.

Priority:Medium

[Ktulu]

Suggestion: Add a component to the draft lists which allows users to rank players at each position and add operators which can refer to the position count of your roster (example "if C < 2 draft C"). This would allow for draft lists such as "Slot 1) draft player X or 2) highest ranked 3B".

An example using plain english: Draft SS Joe Smith, if not available draft best C if there are fewer than 2 catchers on roster, otherwise draft best SP.

The game draft list would look something like:

1) SS Joe Smith OR C (if C less than 2) OR SP

Reason: Would allow online league GMs the ability to better control the position break down of their drafts. It's much easier to order a list of players at a specific position than it is to create a list from the general pool of players. By adding this additional component players would have the power to rank a single player (maybe there's one standout they want) and if he is taken they can prioritize a position based on the number of players they have at each position.

Currently, you can have no control in a situation where you rank 3B X ahead of MR Y, but if you already have 2 3Bs you would much rather have MR Y, and if MR Y happens to be gone you'd much rather have the best OF available.

Priority: Low - Since it's mostly useful in inaugural drafts which only occur once.

[PineTar]

Suggestion: Please include Work Ethic and Intelligence on the player html.

Reason: These seem to be semi-important for dev, so it would be nice (especially for online leagues) to have these appear.

Priority: Medium-High

[Tony M]

Suggestion

Make the game check if the last exported file on the Commish FTP matches your game state on leaving.

Reason

If you forget to export, click export to File, or just mess up an export and then re-install the league file and forget to then do a proper export it can cause problems. Making the game check and ask you whether you want to upload your file if it is different would get round this.

Priority

High

[Solonor]

Suggestion
Divorce the GM history from the username.

Reason
In online leagues, GM's come and go. That's all fine, and you can just create a new GM for the new guy and assign him to a team.

The problem is that if you delete the old GM, it also removes his record from the manager history. That's just wrong. But the only alternative is to keep the old GM name around...which leads to a cluttered up login screen where you can't find your own name amongst the list of "John Doe (No Team)" entries!

Priority
Low. It's just annoying.

[Deft]

On line Allstar Ballot

[pbar25]

Suggestion
Make hiding the scores/sim results after you update your file more complete.

Reason
The addition of 'Watch Game Replay' is amazing. I update my league file for an online league, then watch my games without knowing what happened.

However........there are some problems with it.

#1 - I must avert my eyes from the upper right of the screen, or position the game with a portion outside of the screen so I do not see my newly updated record -- because if I'm going to watch all of the games then I don't want to know my record.

#2 - In the playoffs there is a major issue with the replays. Most online leagues sim portions of the playoffs at a time. For instance, Game 1 & Game 2 of the World Series are simmed together, while the next day the series will continue with games 3,4,5. The game will default to the new game date when I update my game, falling upon the next playoff game.

Now I must avert my eyes again when I go to the league schedule because if I look at the pitching match up for the next game I will see the score of the playoff series 2-0 or 1-1 and then watching the games is now not as exciting. Further, if I am able to even just see that a game is scheduled for that day then I might already know what has happened if a series was 3-0, etc.

Solution: Maybe the solution is one box that needs to be checked which would appear on the first screen a GM sees : 'Replay Mode'.

Once checked it does what the 'Hide Scores' box did, but also blanks out the current day's schedule, stats, etc, and blanks out the standings in the upper-right. The only thing that can be seen is 'Watch Replay' on each game.

This setting should be part of a GM's settings, so that if he updates his file and imports with the 'Replay Mode' box checked, then the next time he updates the file it will open with everything hidden.


Priority
High

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by pbar25

Suggestion
Make hiding the scores/sim results after you update your file more complete.

Reason
The addition of 'Watch Game Replay' is amazing. I update my league file for an online league, then watch my games without knowing what happened.

However........there are some problems with it.

#1 - I must avert my eyes from the upper right of the screen, or position the game with a portion outside of the screen so I do not see my newly updated record -- because if I'm going to watch all of the games then I don't want to know my record.

#2 - In the playoffs there is a major issue with the replays. Most online leagues sim portions of the playoffs at a time. For instance, Game 1 & Game 2 of the World Series are simmed together, while the next day the series will continue with games 3,4,5. The game will default to the new game date when I update my game, falling upon the next playoff game.

Now I must avert my eyes again when I go to the league schedule because if I look at the pitching match up for the next game I will see the score of the playoff series 2-0 or 1-1 and then watching the games is now not as exciting. Further, if I am able to even just see that a game is scheduled for that day then I might already know what has happened if a series was 3-0, etc.

Solution: Maybe the solution is one box that needs to be checked which would appear on the first screen a GM sees : 'Replay Mode'.

Once checked it does what the 'Hide Scores' box did, but also blanks out the current day's schedule, stats, etc, and blanks out the standings in the upper-right. The only thing that can be seen is 'Watch Replay' on each game.

This setting should be part of a GM's settings, so that if he updates his file and imports with the 'Replay Mode' box checked, then the next time he updates the file it will open with everything hidden.


Priority
High

Just want to add my support for this. While the current system does a good job of hiding the scores, it makes it too easy to accidentally see the won/loss results. Like pbar, I also try averting my eyes, but if you happen to accidentally see your team's updated overall/series record then there goes the suspense that the "Hide Scores" option was designed to build.

While we're on the topic, I'd love to see an option to prevent the updated display of my team's won/loss record while simming multiple days at a time. Currently a progress window pops up during multi-day sims that updates your record each day. I'd like the option to remove the record display from that window.

[MogulChamp]

Suggestion
Online GM's should be able to create news articles.

Reason
Creative and active GM's should have the ability to write news articles about their team, league, or universe and have them posted in the appropriate news sections.

These should be able to be exported with the GM's export file and then be incorporated into the news.

Priority

Low- but it helps with immersion.